We got a lesson in the toxin of tanking.

That was the real side issue of Adebayo’s fun night — fun, right until the aftermath. Then many decided Adebayo’s feat was something else due to the final, few minutes when the Miami Heat fouled to stop the clock and the Washington Wizards triple-teamed him.

Above all that was the real issue: Washington is tanking this season. It purposely played a lineup that would be a play-in team for the NCAA Tournament. It had no one to guard Adebayo. It never adjusted defensively to stop him for three-and-a-half quarters.

Washington coach Brian Keefe seemed fine with Adebayo scoring big to assure the Heat won the game right to the point his team was on the embarrassing side of history. Then he changed his tune and chaos began.

That’s the poison in an NBA season where nearly a third of the league is trying to lose. The Heat’s seven-game win streak entering Saturday is helped by such teams. Everything’s affected. Check the playoff races.

The NHL is different. Look on the other side of South Florida where the Panthers keep defining who they are in a troubled season. They won two dramatic games that actually might hurt them in the long run.

Pride can be like that. It can help you scale the highest achievements. It also can’t be turned off when you might want it to be.

The Panthers won’t make the playoffs to defend their back-to-back titles after a troubled year of injuries. They’re nine points and five teams behind the final playoff spot with 17 games to play. Not happening.

The door prize is they get a first-round draft pick if they finish among the bottom 10 of the NHL. But they entered Saturday tied for 12th with the Los Angeles Kings.

Coach Paul Maurice has started resting some players. He’s also complained for months about the workload of players due to so many injuries.

So, why not tank? This is where it is strategically allowed, even encouraged. Having a season fall apart in front of you, especially due to injury as in the Panthers’ case, is the exception to the anti-tank rule.

“You would love to say you’re being strategic, but you can’t,” general manager Bill Zito said a week ago at the trade deadline. “The team will play as hard as they can every single night. Whatever happens, happens.

“We will react when the season is over and we know, and we will plan for both scenarios.”

This is what the ticket-buying fan deserves. That shouldn’t be lost here. Not enough leagues care about the people who pay money to watch. How can fans care about the NBA regular season when so many teams don’t care between teams tanking and players resting?

The Dolphins had a litmus-test decision involving this subject with the signing of Willis. It tells of today’s sports culture and the fan base’s confidence in the Dolphins that so many fans wanted them to be the Wizards this season. They wanted the Dolphins to tank for a quarterback in the 2027 draft.

That also tells how many ignore the lesson from the Dolphins’ attempt at tanking in 2019. It exposed the Dolphins in an embarrassing way. It spoke of what really wins in sports. Strong leadership. Sound decisions. Proper organizational culture.

The Dolphins had none of that for the past decade. Maybe new management changes that. It’s too early to say. But there’s a clear change in the manner general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan goes about business as the Willis signing showed.

Previously, Dolphins management always found reasons to push defining decisions like the quarterback into next season. Sullivan could have done that and heard applause. He understood his job is to fall in love with the right quarterback and aggressively get him. He knew Willis from Green Bay. He got him.

Will it work? Stay tuned. What is obvious is the Dolphins aren’t going the Wizards route. They’re going the Panthers way, the Heat way — the way of all well-run franchises in the face of the infernal temptation of tanking.

What hasn’t changed for Nova Southeastern men’s basketball over the past six years is simpler to see: They haven’t lost at home.

NSU won its 100th consecutive home game on Tuesday night, 104-91, against Rollins in the opening round of the Sunshine State Conference tournament at Rick Case Arena.

Jim Crutchfield’s team is ranked No. 1 in Division II and leads the nation in scoring per game. It has advanced to elite eights of the national tournament for the past four years, won two national titles and finished second once.

Now comes this 100th straight home win that brings all this recent success together. NSU began the streak on Feb. 26, 2020.

“What I like about this streak is it involves so many people,’’ Crutchfield said leading up to the win. “It involves coaches over these years. It involves 40 to 50 players. So many people have been a part of it in a way that means something.”

Kentucky has the longest home winning streak in college basketball with 129 consecutive victories from 1943 to 1955. The Sharks’ win puts them second on the list by moving ahead of UCLA’s 99 straight home wins from 1971 to 1974.

Guard Ross Reeves scored 32 points for Nova in Tuesday’s win, and center Jaxon Napp had 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Guard Dallas Graziani had 11 points and 12 assists.

The big stat was turnovers, as Rollins had trouble with Nova’s full-court pressure. Rollins had 18 turnovers to NSU’s five.

The Sharks, 25-1, can make it 101 straight home wins Thursday in the conference semifinals.

This assumes Nova Southeastern’s men’s basketball team does it Tuesday night. And coach Jim Crutchfield hasn’t assumed his way to winning two Division II titles in the past three years, being ranked No. 1 again this season and not losing on their Davie campus in five seasons.

“Rollins is a tough matchup for us,’’ Crutchfield said of Tuesday’s opponent in the Sunshine State Conference tournament. “Last week, they went ahead with two minutes to go. We made a couple shots and beat them at the buzzer.”

That’s the thing about a great sports streak. It has rare moments. A few years ago, Crutchfield walked to midcourt to shake hands with his counterpart, sure his team had lost on a last-seconds play. But a Virginia Union player had stepped out of bounds. Four-tenths of a second remained. Nova scored to win.

“It’s hard to believe we haven’t lost at some point,’’ Crutchfield said.

Crutchfield, 69, is a rare treasure if you’re a sports aficionado. He works from a home office with Division II’s limited resources. He has two rules: No complaining and no swearing. NBA minds like the Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra and Boston’s Brad Stevens have talked with him at length.

The strength of his up-tempo system — The System, it’s become called — isn’t just evidenced by Nova’s top ranking and Division II-leading 102.2 points per game average. The fifth- and sixth-ranked teams, Gannon and West Liberty, are coached by a former player and assistant using The System.

“If you force more turnovers and get more rebounds than your opponent, you’ll take more shots,’’ Crutchfield says in explaining The System.

Back to the original question: Can any team win 100 consecutive home games again? Crutchfield doesn’t make the streak a topic with his players, though he recently did ask if anyone knew who had the longest home streak in sports.

One player had looked it up. Kentucky’s basketball team won 129 consecutive home games from 1943 to 1955.

“Seventy years ago,’’ Crutchfield said to his players. “Anyone know the second-longest home streak?”

No one did. John Wooden’s UCLA team won 99 straight from 1971 to 1974.

“Fifty years ago,’’ Crutchfield said.

There have been other notable streaks. The University of Miami football team won 58 straight home games from 1985 to 1994. Clemson came the closest to that, winning 40 straight at home before losing in 2022.

There are great, individual streaks that go over the century mark. Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander currently has scored at least 20 points for 123 consecutive games, closing in on Wilt Chamberlain’s record 126 consecutive games with at least 20 points.

But that’s one great player. The Sharks’ streak involves something larger. Crutchfield isn’t much a fan of records or streaks, to the point he didn’t care when some tried to make a big deal of NSU breaking scoring marks or leading the country in various stats.

“What I like about this streak is involves so many people,’’ Crutchfield said. “It involves coaches over these years. It involves 40 to 50 players. So many people have been a part of it in a way that means something.”

Veteran guard Dallas Graziani of Pembroke Pines and Ross Reeves, the leading scorer, direct this team. Jaxon Nap, at 6-foot-7, provides the only size on the team. Others have learned roles or tweaked talents to fit into The System.

Winning has meant a 25% increase in attendance in each of the past three years. Floor seats were sold out for season tickets. That still means an average of less than 1,000 fans at home games this year.

Maybe you see the throwback purity of Division II with its smaller spotlight. But Crutchfield just wants to do what he’s accomplished since arriving at Nova Southeastern: win.

NSU basketball had only one 20-win season in its 34 years when Crutchfield arrived in 2017. He won 17 games that first year and has won no fewer than 23 since.

The Sharks can move to 25-1 on Tuesday. They also can do what only one other team has done in college basketball — and that was 70 years ago. Crutchfield has his thoughts on whether anyone will get to 100 consecutive home wins again.

“A lot of records will be broken in today’s world,’’ he said, “but this one looks unbreakable to me.”

But you know what?

It still stinks, right to the end of celebrations this past week, when the official White House Tik-Tok account used artificial intelligence to transform American (and Ottawa Senators) center Brady Tkachuk into some Canadian-hating caricature of this administration’s imagination.

“They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple-syrup-eating f—- a lesson,” Tkachuk is made to say on White House’s social-media account.

If 12 million viewers were surprised he said this, imagine how Tkachuk felt.

“I’m not in control of those accounts,” he said. “I know those words would never come out of my mouth.”

It’s the oddest of times in America when our athletes are left to explain the wayward conduct of America’s leaders. They tried, too. They said the FBI director Kash Patel’s beer-chugging in the middle of the men’s team celebration was him, “just one of the boys,” though by Friday even President Donald Trump expressed disappointment over that behavior.

The president put the men’s team in another mess with his congratulatory, post-game phone call. He invited it to the White House, then dismissively added he’d have to invite the women’s team, too, or “I do believe I probably would be impeached.”

The players laughed, just as they’d been laughing and hugging and celebrating in the immediate aftermath of years spent working to win the gold medal. Were they to be on guard in that moment to catch the president’s needless jab at women? And then to get more criticism for their reaction than the president for his words?

The adults in the room were the U.S. women.

“I just thought the joke was distasteful and unfortunate,” team captain Hillary Knight said. “I think the way women are represented, it’s a great teaching point to really shine light on how women should be championed for their amazing feats.

“Now I have to sort of sit in front of you … and explain someone else’s behavior. It’s not my responsibility.”

Isn’t sports the easy and fun unifier? Shouldn’t our games show how we’re more alike than apart?

There can be a fun tapestry of sports and politics. Once upon a time, President Richard Nixon drew up a Super Bowl play for Dolphins coach Don Shula. It resulted in an incompletion, but it feels nostalgically naïve by today’s standards.

Even in 2013, when the 1972 Dolphins team went to President Barack Obama’s White House, a few players didn’t attend over Obama’s politics and that was fine. They had their say. The president celebrated those who came and ignored those who didn’t.

Now look at what’s happened. It’s not just an international star like Bad Bunny being turned into a political debate over something as harmless as a Super Bowl halftime show. It’s previously unknowns like Olympic skier Hunter Hess being targeted for saying he had “mixed emotions,” representing the United States.

“There is so much that is great about America, but there are always things that could be better,’’ Hess said.

One of the great things is being able to express yourself.

“U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this.”

Politics and the Olympics often intersect. They typically involve cases like Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych being disqualified for refusing to not wear a helmet honoring his country’s athletes killed in their war with Russia.

But we were pulled into an unnecessary political firefight after the U.S. men’s and women’s teams had memorable gold medal runs. Their overtime wins define everything good about sports. And then came the aftermath.

The men’s team took their invitation to Washington and then had to explain the White House’s Tik-Tok creations.

The women’s team declined their joking invitation and had to explain comments directed at them.

How did such fun turn into such fury?

Solving the salary-cap chaos, weeding out the front office, rebuilding the rickety roster, deciding on fair contracts to players while dropping the pay-everyone lavishness of recent years — that’s all a fragrant bedpan new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan inherited.

But Ta-ta-to-Tua?

It’s not a football or, by now, a financial decision. Owner Steve Ross signed off on getting no return on the $99 million owed Tua in hiring this new regime. So, it’s a diplomatic decision at this point. It’s:  How does The New Guy show how he works in his opening steps?

It’s clear Tua will be dumped — oops, there’s no need for a pejorative verb like that. Tua wasn’t a bad guy with the Dolphins. Odd, at times. But aren’t we all?

Sullivan had the right tone in answering a question about Tua and the quarterback issue in a function for select ticket holders Thursday night.

“Of course, we’ll be looking at other quarterbacks in this draft and every draft hereafter,’’ he said. “But, look, Tua was in my office the other day, if I’m being perfectly frank. We had a great conversation.

“Tua has been a very good player in this league. He’s done a lot of really good things for the Miami Dolphins. You guys should be proud to have him and having had him.”

He concluded: “We’re getting close to a decision. When we do we’ll let Tua know whether he’s going to be part of this or not. And we’ll move forward. But rest assured that we will add competition to that room one way or the other to make it the best that we can.”

That’s the way it’s done. The only way Sullivan can be any nicer for his next meeting with Tua is by channeling the George Clooney character in “Up In The Air,” who fired people by saying, “Anyone who has ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are now.” (A Sam Darnold, Jets-to-Super Bowl reference would work, too).

Again, they’re moving on from Tua. As they should. As they must. As anyone who saw him play last season or, let’s be honest, how the Dolphins had to navigate the last few seasons, must agree.

This is best for Tua, too, as he knows (Cue his, “It’d be dope,” quote in December). The more intriguing question is if he wants to play on in the NFL or just wants his money. He won’t retire and walk away from $99 million — would you?

But does he love football enough to try to claw his way up from a backup role over the next few years, even with his obvious health issues? Again, would you?

Back to the Dolphins. Their biggest contract will remain their biggest headache for a third year running — you know, since they showed Tua the money. That’s done. There’s no need to run more tire tracks over the old regime for not knowing what they were doing. (I’d need new tires, too).

Could the Dolphins trade Tua? Maybe by eating tens of millions and offering draft picks. Bottom-line: There’s no market for a six-year veteran with a big contract and health issues who was benched for a seventh-round rookie.

Could the Dolphins keep Tua to get something for his money?  A new regime deserves a fresh start. That means the quarterbacks, too. Whoever the starter is doesn’t need to have a few bad games and hear people whisper about Tua. Anyone who’s seen Tua play of late really doesn’t want to whisper that, either.

The best part of a new regime is everyone turns the page to Page One. Old problems get rebranded as new opportunities. Surely, you’ve done this dance step enough times over the past two decades with the Dolphins to have muscle memory of how it works.

Sullivan inherits the worst mess of any of the rebuilds. The bloated salary cap. The defense without a proven cornerback or pass rusher. The offense without a quarterback and needing help at receiver, tight end, guard and maybe a tackle.

In that context, Ta-Ta-To-Tua isn’t some complicated decision. It’s diplomacy. Be nice. Wish him well. And hope the new regime fixes this franchise.

“I found a picture of Rueben with no facial hair — now he’s full-bearded,’’ said Taylor, the University of Miami’s defensive line coach and Miami Dolphins Hall of Famer. “Mess came here with these frosted tips in his dreadlocks. He shaved them off.”

Miami’s championship game against Indiana at Hard Rock Stadium ends this season where the primary key for the Hurricanes once again will be the ability of Bain and Mesidor to pressure the opposing quarterback, this time Indiana star Fernando Mendoza.

But this game also ends one of the more compelling teams within a Miami team. You don’t know who’s been more fortunate in this coaching/players relationship: Taylor, for getting to work with two top talents who will be high NFL draft picks; or Bain and Mesidor for learning from a Hall of Fame talent with a matching personality to help them succeed to the NFL.

Each day for the past couple of seasons, Bain and Mesidor would sit in Taylor’s office and “talk everything but football,’’ as Mesidor said.

“Politics, news, Canada (Mesidor is Canadian) — whatever comes up,” Taylor said Saturday at the championship game’s media day at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

By now they put their relationship with Taylor in family terms of, “like father-son,’’ as Bain says or, “older brother to younger brother,’’ Mesidor says.

“They’re like extra sons to me,’’ Taylor said.

Taylor helped recruit Bain in his opening steps as a college coach four years ago. Bain grew up in Miami and knew Taylor’s NFL fame, unlike Mesidor who grew up in Ottawa and didn’t follow football much as a youth.

“Everybody told me he was a Hall of Famer when I got here,’’ Mesidor said. “So, I did the research myself and, yeah, he was awesome.’’

That was Taylor, the havoc-raising edge rusher and commanding locker-room presence. That player never saw this next chapter coming. He coached his sons, Mason and Isaiah, in youth leagues and high school. That led to his taking a job when Mario Cristobal arrived at Miami.

“I used to laugh at the coaches after we’d fly back from a night game and finally get to the facility, and I’d leave in my car and go home for two days and they’d go upstairs to watch film,’’ Taylor said. “I’d say, ‘You guys are idiots.’ Now, I’m the guy who goes in the office.‘’

Now, he also borrows ideas from his coaches like Jimmy Johnson, Dave Wannstedt, Nick Saban and Tony Sparano.

“You take all the lessons, some of the stuff you heard them say — sometimes you thought was coachspeak,’’ he said. “I use those same tricks now and sometimes think, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’‘’

Look at the results. Bain and Mesidor led Miami to 12 sacks in the playoff games against Texas A&M and Ohio State. The numbers weren’t there against Mississippi, but that’s only because Ole Miss altered its offense, as Bain said.

Taylor saw all types of players across his career. Mesidor is the football thinker, the guy who wants to not just understand his role but have backup plans for any variable. Taylor says how at times in meetings he’ll have to say the offense would never do that fourth or fifth idea Mesidor brings up while Bain will sit there and “just shake his head over the rabbit hole we’ve gone down.’’

Here’s their common ground to greatness: “I’ve never been around two guys at this age who work harder than Bain and Mess,’’ Taylor said. “It’s crazy. It’s to the point we had to pull them back to work less. We butted heads at times on that, making them get off the practice field.

“I’m trying to get them to game day and save their legs. They want to practice more. We’re literally, not coming to blows, but tears were shed. That’s how much it matters to them.”

So, now comes their last game. Farewells sometimes have a moment of their own. Taylor’s final game came in this same stadium back when it was called Sun Life Stadium on Jan 1, 2012. A defensive stand closed out the Dolphins’ tight win against the New York Jets. Taylor was then carried around the field by teammates.

If Bain and Mesidor are carried off, it’s because of a title for Miami. Monday is more a graduation for them than an end, though. The NFL awaits them. Taylor watched them grow like a proud football papa. Now the former star says as his students approach the biggest game of their career, “It’s their time.”

That’s because it’s actually begun differently. Properly. Ross simultaneously cleaned out the coaching and the personnel offices for once. Every previous rebuild involved a general manager and coach on uneven timetables with no concern over which job was more important. Not this time.

The talent evaluator was given top billing in this rebuild. That’s how it should be. The Dolphins’ search committee stuck to the conviction of their work by momentarily ignoring the popular name of fired coach John Harbaugh. Some (raising my hand) thought Harbaugh could solve all their problems. And maybe he could..

But the committee was sold on former Green Bay assistant Jon-Eric Sullivan, to whom two NFL executives gave thumbs-up on Saturday. Sullivan doesn’t just come from a blue-ribbon franchise where he rose under respected mentors.

He instantly becomes the central figure in this rebuild. He’s going to draft his way out of this roster’s problems, if they ever get out of them, assuming his Green Bay roots are followed.

Talent evaluating has been the Dolphins central problem for these lost two decades. They pass on quarterbacks. Their drafts are pedestrian. And it’s not because of where they draft or what they need. Just look at the either-or decisions fired general manager Chris Grier made with his first picks on recent draft days:

2020: Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with the fifth pick or Los Angeles Chargers star Justin Herbert sixth.

2021: Receiver Jaylen Waddle sixth or three-time All-Pro tackle Penei Sewell seventh.

2022: Linebacker Channing Tindall 102nd or two-year Super Bowl starter Leo Chenal at 103rd.

Do I need to go on about Sullivan’s importance? Because I can with Grier’s drafts:

2024: Either edge rusher Chop Robinson 21st or All-Pro cornerback Quinyon Mitchell 22nd.

Sure, the coach matters. And the Dolphins’ attention has swung that way by interviewing Seattle offensive coordinator Clint Kubiak on Saturday and setting up interviews for Harbaugh, Kevin Stefanski, Robert Saleh and Chris Shula.

That’s right. There’s a next-generation Shula in the mix. This offseason is full of fresh hope, right?

Ross hasn’t decided just how to structure his new management of Sullivan, vice president of salary cap Brandon Shore and the new coach. Will they be equals reporting to Ross or an intermediary like team president Tom Garfinkel? Will Sullivan run the show?

The structure isn’t as important as the people making it work, NFL insiders say. But the new culture starts with some decisions Sullivan will make regarding the roster.

*Does he reward running back De’Von Achane with a new contract or make him play out his rookie deal? No one deserves a new contract more than Achane. But his position and the Dolphins’ previous penchant for unnecessarily reworking all contracts might cause a quick pause on it this offseason.

*What to do at quarterback? Moving on from Tua is a given. Does Sullivan like Green Bay free agent Malik Willis? And at what cost for a Dolphins franchise in salary-cap hell? The last time the Dolphins hired out of Green Bay, the public idea was coach Joe Philbin would bring quarterback Matt Flynn. But Philbin didn’t like Flynn’s game (which proved right). Willis looks more intriguing.

Green Bay might also be looked at for the Dolphins coach. There’s questions of head coach Matt LaFleur’s contract status with the Packers. But defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley could be a practical possibility if Sullivan is considering the Dolphins have to face Buffalo’s Josh Allen and New England’s Drake Maye in the AFC East for years to come.

Look what Seattle general manager John Schneider did in a similar position. Facing offensive minds like San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan and the Los Angeles Rams’ Sean McVay in the NFC West, Seattle hired a top defensive mind as coach in Mike Macdonald.

It worked. Seattle’s the No. 1 seed in the NFC. It primarily worked because Schneider drafted like the star evaluator he is.

It takes talent to find talent. The Dolphins looked outside, cleaned the organizational slate and made the hiring of the talent evaluator the most important move of this offseason. It doesn’t mean it works, of course. It just means they’ve offered the best chance it will.

“A lot of people, they don’t like the way we play. They call us dirty. They call us nasty. They call us bullies. So, I would like to take this time to apologize to absolutely f—ing no one. We are the double champs. We do what the f— we want. Let’s go!” — Florida Panthers center Sam Bennett at the victory parade in June after a second consecutive Stanley Cup win.

“I didn’t have enough wipes to clean myself.” — Miami coach Mario Cristobal after being kissed by former Hurricanes star Michael Irvin after the playoff win against Texas A&M.

“He came here to win this trophy.” — Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano on Lionel Messi after their December title win.

“I want to see me get my joy back.” — Jimmy Butler in January opening the door to his eventual trade from the Miami Heat.

“We’re another day closer to death.” — Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel in training camp explaining why it was a good day.

“Man, that guy’s good-looking.” — Panthers forward Brad Marchand on what his younger self would think of him at 37.

“We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings.” — Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa after losing to the Los Angeles Chargers in October.

“I’ve made a mistake, and I’m owning up to that right now.” — Tua in response a few days later to the furor over his previous quote.

“I thought they were teasing because it’s my first All-Star Game,’’ — Miami Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers when told if the game went into extra innings he would be in the deciding home-run derby. His home run helped the National League win.

“The first one was a dream come true. It was euphoric. This one was an achievement. It was hard. It was hard all year. It was hard at camp. It never got easy.” — Panthers coach Paul Maurice on winning the second straight Cup last spring.

“If you don’t draft me, that’s your fault. You’ve got to remember you’re the same team that’s got to play me for the rest of my career, and I’ll remember that.” — former Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward of NFL teams that would pass on drafting him.

“Some of it has being able to see guys. With their guys also up front, and our guys, I’m not the tallest guy in the back there either … sometimes you don’t want to throw blindly.” — Tua on not being able to see over the line to throw to receiver Jaylen Waddle.

“As you can see, I have my kids up here right now, so things in the house, those things can be replaced. And if they can’t be replaced, what does it really matter? This is really what matters, family and closest ones.” — Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra after his house was destroyed by fire in November.

“I live and breathe for the Florida Panthers. I bleed for the Florida Panthers. I’ve given my body and everything to this team. I want to keep doing it forever — for as long as they let me come to the rink.” — Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad last spring on wanting to re-sign with the team.

“Yeah, I think we can.” — Panthers general manager Bill Zito after winning the Cup on the possibility of re-signing free agents Ekblad, Marchand and Bennett, which was then accomplished.

“Listen, Mike (McDaniel) and I want to win probably more than you guys (media) in here, just to get you guys off our backs.” — then-Dolphins general manager Chris Grier in April. He was fired in October.

“The message we wanted to send is, ‘It’s our time right now.’ ” —  Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk on why he and brother Brady each fought within the opening three seconds of the United States team’s 3-1 win against Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament in February.

“Eighty is the new 60.” — Heat president Pat Riley, saying he’d keep working despite what anyone thinks about his age.

“I think as I look back at Alabama and then as I was getting ready to come to the NFL, one of the biggest changes and differences that I’ve felt would have been some of the surgeries that I’ve had. I can kind of feel some of the residuals within my ankles. I was running a little different when I was at Alabama.” — Tua on differences between him in college and now.

“Call the fire department. Put your hair out. Let’s move on, please.” — Maurice on the continued furor of Bennett knocking Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz out of their playoff series last spring.

“They do the work. We just drink coffee and swear.” — Maurice on why coaches shouldn’t be in the traditional handshake line after playoff series ends.

“There’s no hiding it — that’s the big man.” — Maurice in September on losing center Aleksander Barkov to a knee injury perhaps for the whole season.

“Let us never ever devalue the importance of head-to-head competition.” — Cristobal on why Miami should be in the College Football Playoff over Notre Dame.

“I haven’t played anywhere near the standard that I’ve played in years past.” — Tua in September.

“I think Quinn (Ewers) gives this team the best chance to win.” — McDaniel on why he benched Tua for the seventh-round rookie quarterback.

“That is always a dream. This is my life partner.” — WNBA star A’ja Wilson on a future with Heat center Bam Adebayo.

“Goose-bumps.” — Panthers forward Jesper Boqvist on watching the Stanley Cup banner rise on opening night.

“It’s a club,” Gino Torretta said.

It’s a closed club, too, one you can’t talk or buy or get voted in. You have to earn your way in by winning like all the big names before you did.

“I think that’s how all of us feel,” Torretta said. “It’s an honor to part of that club.”

Listing them all can be a feat of generational memory, like reciting U.S. Presidents. The easier way is to read their names off the stadium’s ring of honor. George Mira. Jim Kelly. Bernie Kosar. Vinny Testaverde. Steve Walsh. Craig Erickson. Ken Dorsey.

“We’d gone through many of the same experiences as a Miami quarterback, and then you get to know each other after you’re done playing through the years,” Torretta said.

At a time they’re their Hurricanes, the one playing Texas A&M in the college playoffs next Saturday, it’s been a tough time for their club of late. Kelly’s cancer is gone in the manner they all cheered for. But Kosar had a liver transplant a few weeks ago, and was back in the Cleveland hospital with issues.

“Doctors are in with me now,” he texted Saturday morning. “Next steps being taken.”

Quarterback U lost a member this past week, too, when George Mira died at 83. He was “The Original”, as they sometimes called him, pre-dating all the others as a two-time All-America quarterback in 1962 and 1963.

Mira had all the door prizes of fame in his era: A “Matador” nickname for his scrambling ways; the first UM player and only Key West native on the cover of Sports Illustrated under the headline, “One Wonderful Conch Is This Mira”; and His No. 10 jersey was retired.

Mira was older, from a different era. The other Miami quarterbacks got to know each other in organic fashion. Walsh came back to watch video with Dorsey. Kosar and Torretta once stood by the team bench and saw the same hole in the Florida State defense they always saw from its great defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews.

Kosar wanted to tell Dorsey, who was playing that game.

“You can’t, Bernie,” Toretta said.

“I’ve got to,” Kosar said.

He approached Dorsey. “The middle’s open,” Kosar said.

It was, too. Dorsey began attacking it. Stories like that always separated Miami from other programs for football generations. It’s what coach Mario Cristobal has tapped into this season by having players like Michael Irvin on the sideline.

These relationships among quarterbacks have always been good but different with Mira. His NFL career had long played out, from being the 15th pick of San Francisco in 1965 to being Bob Griese’s backup in the Miami Dolphins’ Super Bowl season in 1971.

By the time Quarterback U was named, Mira was operating a food stand, Native Conch, at the Fairchild Botanical Garden in Coral Gables. He’d bring conch fritters to the other quarterbacks, too, when they’d meet at UM reunions or an annual golf tournament for Quarterback U. that was thrown by former team chaplain Leo Armbrust for more than a decade.

Most quarterbacks showed up every year, too. No wonder, considering the stakes: The Bishop Cup.

“They were fundraisers for Catholic charities,” Armbrust said. “We ended up building a church through those golf tournaments.”

Armbrust even collected all the game-worn jerseys from the quarterbacks of Quarterback U., and gave them to Torretta for safekeeping when he left the university a few decades ago. Sounds like a future fund-raiser.

After Dorsey left in 2003 and Miami’s fortunes soon began to drift, Quarterback U. began to be less of a name because its quarterbacks were often less of a thing.

Now it’s a different era in college football. Cam Ward was as good as any Miami quarterback, but only played a year in Coral Gables before going to the NFL. Carson Beck will only play a year, too. It’s hard to build a friendship on the run like that.

Quarterback U. has faded from view in some respect, too. But it’s still a club to those in it. Torretta was in New York signing 300 football trophies on Friday like every other former Heisman Trophy winner on the weekend the newest winner is announced.

Amid it all, he thought his club at Quarterback U., saying, “We lost a great man.”

Was Miami convincing enough Saturday?

That’s the only adjective that matters.

Miami beat Pittsburgh 38-7. It won its final four games. It finished 10-2 on the season. It also left the field wondering what everyone was wondering:

Could they find some help, like a penny on the ground? Please?

They didn’t benefit Saturday from another team’s loss to secure an at-large playoff spot. None lost. No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 10 Alabama escaped with wins Saturday while No. 9 Notre Dame dominated Stanford.

They didn’t get the parlay of outcomes necessary to make the ACC Championship Game. That’ll be unranked an 7-5 Duke against No. 18 Virginia

Their last-chance saloon seems to be Duke beating Virginia in that conference championship. The 12-member College Football Committee can’t put in a five-loss Duke. But could old friend Manny Diaz, the former Hurricane and current Duke coach, do Miami a favor by beating Virginia and opening a playoff spot? Or would the committee keep a 10-1 and ACC champ Virginia below Miami in the rankings?

You”ll hear the politicking and finger-pointing leading into Tuesday’s vote by the committee about how Miami beat Notre Dame yet is ranked below Notre Dame. It started right after Miami’s win on Saturday.

“The best part of football is you get to settle it on the field where Head-to-head is always the No. 1 criteria,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal said after Saturday’s win, just as he should. Just as Miami should pound, too.

Before you pound the homer table on that, consider the other parts of Miami’s season to understand where the committee’s thinking. Because Miami ….

… lost to unranked Louisville and SMU, who after clambering to No. 21, also will likely be unranked after losing to Cal late Saturday.

… won’t even make the ACC Championship Game, much less win it.

… had a schedule with a CFP-high eight home games, will have played one top-25 team by the time the final rankings come out (Notre Dame), faced only two of the other top six ACC teams (SMU, Pitt) and still had two losses.

Notre Dame won at Pitt two weeks ago, 37-15. How does that compare to Miami’s win Saturday? Do we have to parse that, too?

Miami fans might be angry today. But they aren’t even at the front of the line of fandoms worked over by the CFP Committee. That’s 13th-ranked Vanderbilt. It was idle when Miami leap-frogged it two weeks ago in rankings for some reason. Vanderbilt’s two losses are at No. 8 Alabama and at No. 19 Texas. It navigated a tougher SEC schedule. It had a friendly SEC schedule, but whipped No. 19 Tennessee on Saturday.

Maybe we should just talk about Malachi Toney. There’s someone everyone can agree on.  He might have wrapped up the 2026 Heisman Trophy with another electric game on Saturday.

Toney threw a 9-yard touchdown, caught a 22-yard touchdown and was a running touchdown away from a spectacular hat trick.

As it was, Toney had 13 catches for 126 yards. That gave him 84 catches, one behind Xavier Restrepo’s school record of 85 in a season.

Miami did more than flash Toney’s rare talent again Saturday. It went into the trenches and whipped Pitt. It controlled the ball offensively behind Carson Beck completing 23 of 29 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns. It controlled the game defensively right from the start as Pitt was minus-12 yards after its first two drives.

Miami even showed the kind of on-field discipline that’s been lacking some moments. Twice on a third-quarter drive, Pitt players acted up after crucial stops to merit unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties. Miami took advantage of that with Mark Fletcher’s touchdown run to end a 75-yard drive for a 24-7 lead.

The Hurricanes looked at their best Saturday. Can that matter some? Mario Cristobal will press that point right to Tuesday’s vote. Just as he should. Before the game, ESPN’s Nick Saban went on the offense for Miami.

“If they get in this playoff, they’re going to be the most dangerous team that anybody has to play because of the talent level,’’ Saban said.

The former Alabama coach knows a few things about championships. He also knows how to come to the aid of a former assistant like Cristobal.

Saban’s point underlines the shame of it all. Miami does have great talent. It would be dangerous in the playoff.

Miami is a team the committee wants in, too. Don’t talk about some conspiracy theory or how everyone has hated Miami for years. That’s nonsense. Why was Miami-Notre Dame a prime-time showcase of the opening weekend? Why did Miami jump an idle Vanderbilt and close-win Utah on successive weeks? (Vanderbilt tops Miami on the outrage-meter. Its only two losses are on the road at Alabama and Texas).

“That’s a College Football Playoff team,” Cristobal said. “We’ve all seen it. We know it.”

It was Saturday. It’s been so many weeks. It just had two bad weeks that might keep them out.