AUBURN – Hubie Brown didn’t win an American Basketball Association championship with the Kentucky Colonels or take three NBA teams to the playoffs by making nice with millionaires.

No surprise, then, that Brown wouldn’t coddle college kids hired to be the X’s and O’s on his imaginary chalkboard at a coaching clinic.

Brown watched five Central Maine Community College men demonstrate a drill at half-speed Saturday while he schooled roughly 60 youth coaches in the finer points of attacking various zone defenses.

The defenders were invisible. The 73-year-old teacher wasn’t. Nor did he stay silent.

“Now see, that was a terrible pass,” Brown barked at one player before turning his attention to the big man who half-heartedly tried a reverse layup and barely brushed the backboard. “And if you ever took that shot for me, I would be right up in your face. Don’t be doing that ESPN b—s—.”

Well into his fifth decade of teaching basketball, Brown laughed, so his pawns and a captive audience at CMCC’s sixth-annual workshop felt comfortable following suit.

The two-time NBA Coach of the Year’s present perception of the professional game is no laughing matter, though. Engaging, well-traveled and anything but politically correct, Brown found his newest ammunition after watching the FIBA World Championship this summer.

Despite sending an all-star team of NBA stars that included LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, the United States went home with a bronze medal. It was merely the latest indignity in an international arena the Americans once dominated, and Brown said he saw it coming in the quarterfinals against Germany.

“Dirk Nowitzki and four guys from Wendy’s over here in Auburn were on that team,” Brown said. “And against that team, we shot 40 3’s. Forty 3’s! I’m watching that game at 3:30 in the morning saying, ‘What the hell is this all about?’ It’s false security. We were jumping over those four guys from Wendy’s, getting the rebound and getting fouled, and we ended up winning the game. But we were in trouble, because we didn’t run an offense to attack a zone.”

In the semifinals, the U.S. faced another anonymous team and absorbed a 101-95 defeat.

“The next night, we play a team of five white guys with nobody in the NBA, called Greece. Greece packs it in and we take 28 3’s, with no second shots at all. Those five Greek guys are knocking us right on our ass,” Brown said. “This is a big stage now. What happens? Boom, long rebounds, and here comes Greece, 3-on-1 and 3-on-2, all night. The second and third quarters of that game, I think Greece shot 72 percent.

“You know how bad Spain beat Greece in the final? Twenty-five points. Kicked their ass. Why? Because they had an inside game. They were cutting. They had movement inside. They didn’t take 3’s.”

Brown also decried the lost art of foul shooting in the pro game.

During his first swing through the NBA with Atlanta and New York, Brown said his teams hit 78 percent of their free throws. Even though Brown engineered an amazing turnaround during a recent two-year stint in Memphis, steering the franchise to its first-ever playoff appearance, the Grizzlies never came close to that level of efficiency.

“Today, guys are getting fouled more often because they can’t make foul shots. And it’s depressing when you work so damn hard,” Brown said.

Memphis surprised many by hiring Brown after he spent 15 years on the sideline as a television analyst and clinician. He had an easier time connecting with players young enough to be his grandchildren than some skeptics anticipated.

“ESPN Magazine spent a day with us at practice for a 10-page feature on how we finally converted Jason Williams into becoming a team player,” Brown said. “Give me a break. It was all about fear, baby. It always is.”

Clinics take Brown back to his roots. He spent nine years coaching high school basketball in a league where fellow national hardwood personalities Dick Vitale and Richie Adubato also got their start.

He reminded his audience that everything he was instructing them to do, he learned because he’d done it wrong.

“When I coached in North Jersey, there were 52 teams in our league, and we all went to the same pizza joint on Friday night afterwards,” said Brown. “It was hilarious. By 2 o’clock in the morning, we were out there moving around garbage cans in the parking lot, replaying the game.”