redmen dot com, saint john's

Sharif Don’t Like It

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There’s a thread over on Redman dot dumb called “All-Time SJU All  Defense Team” (redundant much?) started by one of the most exquisitely stupid posters there who I won’t name because he’s a moron and a fucking gasbag. The thread is four pages long and comprises 20 or 30 posters and not a single one of these retards mentioned Sharif Fordham, who was close to the best on ball defender I’ve ever seen in watching 40 years of basketball. Some genyious mentioned Donald Emanuel though and another geezer dragged Ed Searcy into the conversation. I nearly registered (as Normal Roberts) to call them all cunts but then I remembered I had this forum that I specifically designed to call those cunts cunts, hence this post.

red storm

Figueroa Boat Ashore

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Hello sports fans. I hope you’re enjoying this psyops operation designed by the Davos Bilderburg one world government crowd to see how much shit Americans will eat in exchange for a government check and a false sense of security. Which evidently in your case is quite a bit. Don’t wear a mask, wear a mask, hide under your beds, put on your tin foil hat, take off your tin foil hat, it’s quite a hoot. For the record Missus fun and I are fine and in fact my life hasn’t changed almost in the slightest: I’ve been social distancing since the early 90s. The only blip on the radar is that the missus has been home from work for four months and it turns out that I’m not a very good 24 hour a day husband. I’m more of like a two hours in the morning four hours in the evening kind of good husband. Still, I’ve managed not to strangle her and deposit her dismembered body parts off I-88 near the Auriesville shrine, so there’s that.

Anyhoo, I thought to post my thoughts about LJ Figueroa’s decision to enter the transfer portal, and especially after reading the hysterical commentary by the herd of Karens over at Redman dot dumb, who are to nearly a woman engaging in slander and wild conspiracy theories, at least those who haven’t taken to the divan with smelling salts. I nearly created an account for the sole purpose of calling them all cunts but then I remembered I had this stupid blog and that I could call them cunts here, hence this post.  Herewith is a sample of their measured classy (classy is their favorite word, especially when it comes to describing themselves) commentary.

+++

a scumbag move

a poor move by Figueroa and really shifty

terrible form by Figueroa.

LJ Figueroa just strung us along

Being classy (ed note: like CTC) doesnt get you anywhere in this world

good riddance to Figueroa

Good riddance

there’s very much something sleezy going on in this situation, LJ probably wants a little cash

Figgy is selfishly trying to enhance his prospects of a pro career while st johns is concerned with team play.

LJ hung us out to dry

LJ screwed the staff and SJU

he had enough time to figure out which tampering program was the best fit

LJ had the keys to the City

Listening to someone in Nebraska?

they’ll be much better off without him.

total screw job, plain and simple!!!

$$$’s have got to be in the picture

Cut ties, no waiver granted, good luck in Europe.

a disservice to both himself as well as the program

LJ handled this poorly

never liked his game would not consider him a premiere player, anyone is expendable.

a bad basketball player

It looks almost spiteful at this point.

addition by subtraction
addition by subtraction
addition by subtraction
addition by subtraction

+++

So sayeth the worst of the worst most ignorant fan base in all of sports.

Let me tell you what really happened.

Figueroa didn’t want to come back last year but had no shot at getting drafted and didn’t want to transfer and sit out so he came back to play for coach third choice. He had a disappointing year in a system that does not flatter his talents, on a team that by all metrics sucked. Knowing that he was in for more of the same, after the season ended he took enough credits so that he could graduate this spring and therefore transfer without sitting out. Because again, he had no shot at getting drafted. On May 19 2020, finals ended. A week later LJF got his grades, found out he passed all his courses and was a college graduate. Being a college graduate he can be a graduate transfer in basketball, which means he did not have to sit out a year. A day or two later on May 26 2020, he put his name in the transfer portal. Buh bye.

Now, that’s what happened. You can believe it or you can believe that LJF is a shifty back stabbing scumbag who’s looking to get paid ba$ed upon advice from Matt Abdelma$$ih. Which if you believe that no doubt you believe that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, which makes something of a prize rube.

See you in the funny papers.

brown, saint john's

Fade to Brown

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Back in the days before the blush came off Chris Mullin’s rose I postulated about his early recruit Malik Ellison (who I interviewed here: http://www.bigeastboards.com/?p=1183) that he was a Jonah, meaning jinx (or if you prefer, Mush), the pejorative meaning of which arises from poor Jonah of the old testament. For those of you godless types, Jonah was tasked by Our Lord to visit bad news upon the city of Nineveh but instead fled from his labors aboard a ship bound for Tarshish, which ship a peeved Yahweh afflicted with a violent storm that threatened the life of captain and crew, which captain and crew threw Jonah into the ocean, where he was swallowed by a huge fish which carried him to Nineveh and vomited him up upon the beach, where a chastened Jonah delivered the Lord’s message, which was essentially to quit your wicked ways or else. Anyway the evidence against Ellison – who scored 18 points in his season debut at Hartford this week, where he’s a graduate transfer – comprises both his on-court ineptitude (he’s averaged about a third as many turnovers a year as he has points over the course of his career) but also the misfortunes visited on the teams for which he played: SJU was 22-43 in his two years there, Pitt was 14-19 and Hartford currently sits at 4-7, which is carry the one 40-69 over a four year career, which I think we can agree is less than auspicious, especially considering his pedigree.

I started thinking about Ellison after the West Virginia game. In that game despite LJ Figueroa being held scoreless in the second half and despite Mustapha Heron shooting 2-12 and despite St John’s two-headed point guard committing eight turnovers SJU won, improbably, because Greg Williams – a 20 percent three point shooter – hit a nutty three as the shot clock expired and because Saint John’s was gifted 15 more free throws than WVU – and made 21 of them, having previously missed four of every ten – including two on a questionable call with five seconds left that provided the margin of victory and meanwhile WVU, a 70 percent FT shooting team shot 40 percent from the line. Or consider last night, when with St John’s on the ropes Brown senior Joshua Howard blew a lay-up line lay-up, from which miss Brown did not recover. And this in a week where half of Georgetown’s team was dismissed for their wicked ways and half of Seton Hall’s team went down to injury and suddenly it occurred to me that maybe Coach Third Choice has some sort of inverse Malik Ellison hoodoo going on, because how things have gone this year at Saint John’s are exactly the opposite of the way things usually go at St John’s. I’m not going to rehash all the vigorous rogerings SJU has taken over the years (you only have to recall last year’s Seton Hall game to know what I’m talking about) and the terrible injuries, to Jayson Williams, Billy Singleton, Rob Thomas, Darryl Hill. And so I wondered: is it possible that the curse is lifting and that CTC is the guy doing the lifting. And having thought that I wrote what became the beginnings of this essay, within four hours of which Mustapha Heron went down with what looked to be a pretty severe injury. And it occurred to me: maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the Jonah. St John’s. The Dee-troit Lions. Any one of a thousand horses whose noses were an inch too short. It all makes a weird sort of sense.

Maybe it’s me.

If you told me ten years ago that I’d even be considering this I’d have scoffed. Because there was a time I didn’t believe in anything. Nowadays though I’m so cynical that I don’t trust my own skepticism so everything’s on the table: Yahweh, Mohammed, Buddha, heaven, hell, vampires, ESP, ghosts, UFOs, Big Foot, Mothman, Nessie, Chupacabra, sea monsters, mermaids. So why shouldn’t I be a bad luck charm, because there are more things in heaven and earth Horatio. And in fact if my rudimentary understanding of the physics of infinite universes is correct all these things must exist, if not in this universe then in a parallel one. Which on the bright side means there’s a universe where maybe it’s not me and where St John’s has won a couple of national championships under long time head coach Jay Wright … Regarding Heron’s injury, the normal among us hope it’s not serious and that if it is that he recovers quickly. And yet I’d bet real money that somewhere this morning on some fan forum sewer some member of the worst most ignorant fan base in all of sports has expressed the idea that Heron’s injury might be a case of addition by subtraction, that he wasn’t playing well anyway and that the team wasn’t going anywhere this year and that his loss will afford CTC the opportunity to give his bench some well needed seasoning, which could only help the team moving forward. As I said, real money … Regarding CTC, at first I thought it a tad odd that instead of sprinting across the court to see why his star player – who’s after all we’re told is just like a member of his family – was writhing on the ground with what looked like maybe a career ending injury he stood in front of his bench with his arms folded. I mean I don’t much like my family but if one of them was screaming in pain I might inquire what the problem was. Whereas CTC just stood there, which in retrospect I see the wisdom of. Probably he didn’t want the rest of the team getting agitated, so he just stood there looking bored and after the game when asked about what Heron’s loss might mean to the team said merely, well “it’s next man up.” Pure class.

saint john's, st peter's

Flash N The Panic

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St John’s survived St Peter’s Tuesday night at Carnesecca Arena 79-69 and when I say survived that’s not an exaggeration. St John’s led by 22 (28-6) at the second TV timeout and were outscored thereafter 63-51, including in the second half for the third or fourth time this year, which see also half time adjustments. Still, SJ’s had a comfortable 73-55 lead with five minutes left when Coach Third Choice called a timeout to impart some much needed wisdom to his young charges. I don’t know what he said to them but whatever it was he should never impart it again, because it resulted in a 2-14 run that got SPU within six with a minute to play. If LJ Figueroa – a career 60 percent free throw shooter – hadn’t hit his last four, who knows what might have happened.

There’s good and bad news in the box score. The good news is that SJ shot respectably from the field – 47 percent from the floor and 40 percent from three – and had 26 assists, which seems like a lot, because the ball movement in the often-ossified half court offense leaves something to be desired. The bad news is that SJ was outrebounded, turned the ball over 19 times and once again were moribund from the free throw line: they were 9-16 (56 percent) before LJF made his last four. If SPU wasn’t so spectacularly awful – they shot 37 percent from the floor, 33 percent from three, 40 percent from the FT line and committed 20 TO’s– things would be as glum in Queens this morning as they are here in upstate NY every morning … It’s still way too early to pass judgment on a team with a new coach integrating what are essentially eight new players but there are however warning signs that disaster looms. These I won’t bother rehashing. On the bright side SJU has beaten everyone they “should” have beaten except what looks like a bad home loss to Vermont, loser of three of their last four. Saturday’s game at MSG against undefeated West Virginia – which maybe who knows SJU was looking past SPU at, which even if a good excuse for yesterday is itself a bad sign for tomorrow – should be a good measuring stick. Obviously I haven’t seen WVU but Huggins is Huggins, even when he’s faced, which he usually is.

PLAYERS: LJ Figueroa – who finally got called for the push-off he uses to get free on his step-back three – led all scorers with 19 points in 26 minutes … Heron had 17 points on 13 shots and contributed almost nothing else (one assist/steal/block/rebound). He did commit four fouls though, which makes 13 over his last three games. If he’s committing 4.3 fouls a game against Wagner and St Peter’s he’ll be fouled out by the first TV time out against Villanova. His propensity to foul seems a pattern: he committed last year more than four fouls 12 times while fouling out of four games … Julian Champagnie double doubled. As impressive as he’s been early lest we get over our skis recall that he’s a three star recruit playing with four and five star recruits against no star recruits … Josh Roberts (infra) had four points, four blocks and eight rebounds … Rasheed Dunn and Nick Rutherford had a combined four points, ten assists and six turnovers. That’s not a very good stat line for a PG with one head, much less two … Damien Sears (three points) played the same number of minutes (11) as Earlington (six points), which isn’t in anyone’s best interests. It might be me but CTC seems to have little patience with Earlington’s exuberance on the offensive end … I’ll come right out and say that David Cadaver annoys me, which I think maybe it’s the Donald Trump Jr bouffant. Not that I have anything against DTJ, I mean Kimberly Gilfoyle, come on, that’s a woman. No wonder Eric Bolling was sending her dick pics … Once again I almost forgot that Greg Williams played. He showed flashes last year, so maybe he is in fact injured

NOTES: The bad news is that under the expert tutelage of Steve “Some things are more important than winning” Lavin (for those of you scoring at home those things are pasta and gravy) former SJU point guard Rysheed Jordan went from a borderline lottery pick – he was in high school a higher rated recruit than Joel Embiid – to being a janitor at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center where he was until recently awaiting trial for a slew of felonies, including attempted murder, aggravated assault and robbery. The good news is that Rysheed was released from prison this week. I suspect without knowing that he pleaded guilty to some lesser charge in exchange for time served, Jordan not having been brought to trial within 365 days, which is the statutory speedy trial term in Pennsylvania. The reaction from St John’s fans was mixed: some wondered whether he had any eligibility left and others wondered why he not had the book thrown at him. My opinion is somewhere in between. Subscribing as I do to the old Russian proverb “This German may be a good fellow, but better to hang him” I think that most people should be drawn and quartered on general principles. And yet one cannot help but feel compassion for a teen who fell from grace so far and so precipitously. One minute the world is yours and the next your world is shit and you’re being raped in the prison shower. At the risk of being mawkish let us hope Rysheed makes more of his future opportunities than those he’s had in his past … In the NOTES section of the Wagner recap I mentioned as is my wont famous alumni which at Wagner I noted included … “Hall of Fame coach Rich Kotite; and a former valued SJ basketball forum poster called WeAreSJU who passed away this past fall at the untimely age of 51.” For those of you with lives WASJU used to be active on various fan forums and was in my estimation an intelligent and jolly fellow, but he no longer posts regularly anywhere except for occasionally with the geriatric D listers at Redman dot dumb. So anyway I just meant to give him a shout out, knowing that he reads (or used to anyway) this dopey blog. In hindsight it’s quite predictable that a fan base that takes to the divan with smelling salts every time some drama queen pretend insider changes his forum avatar and that traffics in rumors and innuendo like a gaggle of yenta fishwives would have taken my little jape seriously. This despite being preceded by “hall of fame coach rich kotite,” which you’d think was a bit of a dead giveaway. So soon commenced wailing and gnashing of teeth, OMG poor WASJU is daid, and condolences poured in and go fund me pages were being arranged. NEWSFLASH: I was joking and as far as I know WASJU is in good health and teaching his adorable first born the finer points of free throw shooting. And if by some odd eerie coincidence WASJU passed away on the very day I mentioned him passing away in passing, some of you better start putting your affairs in order, because if I’ve the power to kill by dropping names there’s going to be bodies dropping all over the five boroughs … Speaking of Redman dot dumb, there was this week a thread about Josh Roberts, who no one can deny has been having a surprising sophomore season. This led various posters to suggest analogies between Roberts and other basketball players. In general this can be a fun exercise. For example someone might say you know what, Tomas Jasionustein reminds me a bit of Sean Muto with a severe head injury; or another might opine David Caraher reminds me of Marco Bourgault with taller hair and a worse jump shot. This week Josh Roberts, a second year player averaging a three points and three rebounds per game over the course of his brief career was compared to Leroy Ellis (a first round draft pick who averaged a double double over the course of his career), hall of famer Dennis Rodman, Buck Williams (averaged a double double in college and the same over a 20-year NBA career), two time All-American Hakim Warrick, and most spectacularly Bill Russell, who might (other than Wilt Chamberlain) be THE GREATEST BASKETBALL PLAYER WHO EVER LIVED. Even if not the GOAT Russell dominated his sport like no athlete in any sport ever: he won two national championships in two years in college, then won an Olympic gold medal, then won seven NBA championships is nine year in the league. This is Bill Russell

That is not Josh Roberts. The guy who made the comparison first said of Russell – who averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds in college – that like Roberts he “couldn’t make a shot greater than five feet. His total offensive game was putting in follow ups.” He finally walked that back a bit, saying that the comparison “was strictly based on body frame.” Which is like comparing Mr Ed to Secretariat because they both have four legs and a tail. Josh Roberts is 6’9″ 210. You know was 6’9″ 210? Phil Missere. I don’t recall anyone comparing Phil Missere to Bill Russell. I anticipate your protests. Fun you’re thinking, what the fuck? What’s the big deal about some contemporaneous off the cuff hot takes in an obscure corner of the internets. These are fan forums, places where people come to speculate and blow off steam. What do you expect? The short answer is I don’t expect anything, but then I have a low opinion of most people. But if you were to ask me what I’d like, what I’d like is a little introspection and a little circumspection and a little comity. Or in the words of the sort of people who populate these forums, I’d like just a little bit of class. But as I said I don’t expect that, because SJ’s fans comprise the worst most hysterical and dare I say dumbest fan base in all of sports. (Not you obviously, the other guy.) But then again maybe I’m wrong. Maybe mindless speculation based upon groundless rumor is the way to go. Maybe Rysheed Jordan should rot in prison unless he has some eligibilty left and maybe Josh Roberts is Bill Russell and worst of all maybe poor WASJU has left us. If so and once again, RIP.

saint john's, wagner

Wipeout

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(I apologize in advance for the shitiosity of this recap but I’m preparing for Snowpocalypse, plus I might be drunk)

St John’s defeated Wagner at Carnesecca Arena Saturday afternoon to the great surprise of no one, not even me, and I expect disaster at every turn. About the game there’s not much to say. St John’s took a commanding lead midway through the first half by virtue of a 13-0 run that put them up by 20 at half and they coasted the rest of the way .

Those of you looking for bad news in the box score – as I usually am – will note that Wagner actually outscored St John’s in the second half, albeit by one;  that SJU was outrebounded, by Wagner; that SJU turned the ball over 14 times; that SJ shot 9-26 from three; and most critically that SJU shot 11-19 from the free throw line, which puts them at 65 percent for the year, which if you take away the Mercer game where they were 25 of 31 puts them at 51 percent over seven games at 85 for 136, which I’d call a pattern. On the bright side they had a bunch of assists

PLAYERS: Josh Roberts was a rebound off a double double … Back in his comfort zone – aka playing against bad teams – Mustapha Heron had 18 points. Before fouling out. Against Wagner … LJ Figueroa – who scored his first basket with five minutes left in the game – once again looked like he was going through the motions. Fortunately for the good guys when he’s going through the motions he’s pretty good: 6/6/6 in points, rebounds and assists. Hail Satan … Champagnie had 12 points and four steals … Rasheem Dunn is looking more and more like a volume scorer: 14 points on 13 shots. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: D’Angelo Harrison was a volume scorer. Unfortunately I knew D’Lo and Dunn is no D’Lo … Nick Rutherford displayed a vague degree of competency … Earlington played only 10 minutes, I think maybe because he doesn’t understand his role, which is not to take the ball to the basket the first time he touches it and often thereafter. He’s still my favorite player though … David Cadaver falls down a lot … I’ll mention Greg Williams Jr and Damien Sears just for the sake of completeness … Despite the score the walk-ons played three minutes and once again I wonder whether they should play more for a snake bit program that’s e.g. lost players in a lay up line during midnight madness

NOTES: I went to the liquor store Thanksgiving morning and bought a bottle of Vieve Clicquot and a quart of Belvedere and the girl behind the counter said something like ‘Wow, you’re going to be a popular guest,’ assuming they were gifts for my holiday host. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was going home to plow through them laying on the coach watching the Lions lose in some ludicrous fashion. Which I did and as usual the Lions did not disappoint … A FS2 pop in showed a Coach Third Choice quote wherein he opined about his players that when they misbehave “I’ll pop them upside the head,” which John Fanta – a fat bastard presciently named after soda pop – said “that’s the kind of guy he is,” which kind of guy he is evidently is the kind of guy who’s willing to beat his players when they misbehave. Imagine if he said that about his wife: ‘if she burned my dinner I’d pop her upside the head.’ Mike Rice to the white courtesy phone … The last time Wagner played St John’s was the first time Chris Mullin won a game. That was a long time ago … Wagner grads include Jim Carroll, author of the The Basketball Diaries, who as a basketball player was portrayed by Leonardo DeCaprio in the least convincing portrayal of a basketball player since Robbie Benson in One on One; Robert Loggia, who on The Sopranos as Feech La Manna went back to prison when a truckload of stolen plasma screen televisions were found in in his garage … Curt Blefary, 1965 American League ROY nicked named “Clank” by Frank Robinson for his prodigious fielding skills; legendary drunkard and gasbag Bob Beckel; Hall of Fame coach Rich Kotite; and a former valued SJ basketball forum poster called WeAreSJU who passed away this past fall at the untimely age of 51. Rest in Peace … Wagner stinks but it has good taste in former coaches. Theirs include PJ Carlesimo, Mike Deane, and future St John’s coach Danny Hurley. Mistakes include Dereck Whittenburg – 69–112 at Fordham – whose most memorable basketball moment was the airball that  Lorenzo Charles flushed to win the 1983 national championship, which to this day Whittenburg maintains “was a pass,” because Dereck Whittenburg is a liar

arizona state, saint john's

Second Time’s a Charm

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St John’s avenged Chris Mullin’s 11-point loss in last year’s NCAA tournament by losing to Arizona State University by 13 in a preseason game at the curiously named Airforce Reserve Hall of Fame Tip Off at Mohegan Sun Casino Saturday afternoon, this after blowing a 16-5 first half lead and being outscored the rest of the way by 25 points. Despite having lost now two of their last three this one qualified as a moral victory of sorts, because at least this year they finally have a professional coaching staff that will teach them how to deal with such adversity unlike lazy and shiftless Mitch Richmond.

ASU came out flat – they shot airballs, bounced the ball off their bodies out of bounds and a couple of times just fell over – which I attributed to jet lag – which jet lag allowed SJ’s the early advantage: they led 8-0, 12-2 and finally 16-6 about half way through the first half when the roof caved in: Arizona went on a 14-1 run after the third TV time out: the game was tied four minutes later. St John’s took a small lead into halftime yay! but were punked in the second half and in fact most of the game after the first five minutes, after which first five minutes they were outscored 74-49, which 74 points included a 50 point second half. (Dee fence! Dee Fence!) This marks the third time in three games that the opposing coach’s halftime adjustments (I’m led to believe these are a critical part of coaching) has confounded whatever Coach Third Choice is telling his players, which last two opponents I’d remind you included two America East teams: imagine what’s going to happen when it’s Doug McDermott’s father doing the confounding. It’s also noteworthy that in those three games the opponent’s best player has run amok in the second half; first was Anthony Lamb, then Mike Smith and yesterday it was Remy Martin, who scored two first half points on oh for six shooting and finished with 19 … If Arizona’s slow start was attributable to jet lag, it’s hard to know what would excuse St John’s slow lingering death. They were playing in the their own back yard, in their own time zone and in front of what appeared to be if not a friendly at least a nonhostile crowd and yet they managed only 38 percent from the floor, 18 percent from three, 60 percent from the free throw line, turned the ball over 16 times and had a mere nine assists on 66 shots. My working theory is that they stink. Should you have a different explanation feel free to email me. Regarding the FT shooting I remind you that after the first game of the season against whatever little sister of the poor that was one of CTC’s ball washers on some dumb SJ fan forum said something like ‘Wow! Eighty percent! When was the last time we shot 80 percent from the free throw line, the staff’s really paying attention to every last detail!’ I wish I knew that dummy’s name because since then SJU is 67-109 from the FT line, which is 61 percent. Oh wait I do know his name, it’s Mush … One complaint from Arkansas fans about CTC’s system was that a long bench requires giving inferior players minutes best reserved for better ones. That that might be an issue was evident yesterday when in the first half with SJ up by 10 or so CTC curiously took out his starters and sent in Williams, Cadaver and the rest of the second team scrubs, which scrubs immediately allowed ASU back into the game. (Lest my shitting on CTC be misconstrued it should in no way be considered an endorsement of Danny Hurley’s brother, who stinks. Admittedly I’ve only seen him coach two games, but those were against Mullin and Anderson, and neither of those guys are rocket scientists. All told Hurley’s “forks up” slap in the face to Mike Cragg might be the most important bullet St John’s has dodged since they didn’t ever offer Tom Pecora a job doing anything) … As impressive as SJU front line has been – Champagnie, Earlington and Roberts have all surprised – they were exposed a bit against Arizona, which won the game inside. I wouldn’t want to play this front line in two years, but then god willing I’ll be dead in two years and meanwhile the big east season looms … Fans of irony will note that Hurley’s team was called for a variety of flops in the first half, which if flops were a thing when Hurley was playing college ball he and half of his teammates would have been hanged … The silver lining on this loss is that instead of facing a drubbing by Virginia SJU gets a vaguely winnable game against Umass, which makes sense as UMass is the A10, which is maybe where SJU should be. That UMass beat Central Connecticut State by a bigger margin (46 versus 30) than did St John’s isn’t a meaningful comparison, so I won’t mention it

PLAYERS: LJ Figueroa once again led SJU with 17 points despite once again looking disinterested and dispirited. One wonders whether he misses his mentors Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond … Also once again the other Champagne brother was the second best player on the court, which is not a good look going forward … Josh Roberts had an eight rebounds and a couple of impressive put backs but a lot of that came early, before Danny Hurley’s brother reminded his team to put a body on him … Rasheed Dunn, who’s supposed to make us forget about Nick Rutherford, had as many turnovers as baskets. This I’m willing to ascribe to rust. It’d better be rust anyway … Speaking of Nick Rutherford … Mustapha Heron had the same game he had against ASU last March when he shot SJ’s out of the NCAA tournament. Hopefully he removes his head from his ass because otherwise the season’s going to be longer than the season’s already going to be … Earlington had four points and seven rebounds … Williams, Sears and Cadaver had no points, one rebound and no assists, which once again does not bode well moving forward if these guys are seven through ten in a ten man system. Maybe it’s time to see what the lacrosse player brings to the table

NOTES: A reader wrote to ask after the Columbia game recap: why so negative bro. (Evidently he’s new.) I’m moved to answer. Dear reader. Human beings are a meaningless carbon-based lifeform hurtling through an infinite godless universe on a pebble upon which pebble their only notability is that they’re the most pernicious species of odious little vermin that nature has suffered to crawl across the face of the earth and their history – an unending panorama of rape, murder, betrayal and barbarity – is a dung heap chronicling the tales of depraved and villainous madmen, scoundrels, sadists and degenerates. That’s the good news. The bad news is that as part of way you and I have decided to fill the three score and ten allotted to us between the void and eternal darkness is to root for the St John’s University basketball team, a perennial laughingstock that has suffered through in the past 50 years of futility rape, women beating, payola, point shaving and perhaps most horribly of all the head coaching tenure of Steve Lavin, a cuckolded mental patient. So excuse me if I’m a tad pessimistic. If you want sweetness and light there’s no shortage of rose colored glasses wearing pollyannas on various fan forums who’ll tell you that prosperity is just around the corner. All I have for you is the truth … Arizona State are the Wildcats, which marks the fourth in a row mountain lion mascot St John’s has faced and only the second to have mauled them to death. Unfortunately that streak will come to an end tomorrow, when St Johns faces the Minutemen [insert premature ejaculation joke here]. Re Umass unless I’m more faced than I plan to be and I usually am I’m pretty sure they’ll be no recap, as two of these in two days is one too many. Or maybe even two. So you won’t learn that Umass’s illustrious alumni include gerbil aficionado Richard Gere, serial sex offenders Bill Cosby and Rick Pitino, caterwauler Buffy Sainte-Marie, Julius Erving (he asked Lou for a scholarship but Lou didn’t think it was a good fit) and former Lion’s quarterback Greg Landry, another in the conga line of losers who’s plagued that cursed franchise in my lifetime.

columbia, saint john's

Lion By Omission

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I wasn’t going to write anything about St John’s glorious 82-63 victory over the Columbia Lions Wednesday night at Carnesecca Arena. Because despite the fact that we’re only five games into the season I already need a mental health day. But I’d gone to the trouble of writing the notes section yesterday and thereafter spent several hours looking for just the right Showgirls jpeg to display above and I’d hate to waste all that hard work so here we are. So yea, SJ beat Columbia to the great surprise of no one because Columbia stinks. No doubt some fans are this morning congratulating the team for valiantly bouncing back from their disappointing loss to UVM (infra) but those fans are dunces, because Columbia stinks, despite the presence of Mike Smith, the best player on the floor, who was a few bounces away from a triple double.

As you can see it wasn’t much of a game: St John’s was up by 20 at the half and didn’t look back although it’s vaguely worth noting that much like UVM Columbia outscored St John’s in the second half, which I’m led to believe is a direct result of half time strategizing … A few boring obvious points:

  • St John’s failed to break the magical 70 percent free throw for the fourth straight time and is now at 67 percent for the year

•            Speaking of free throws Columbia shot three to SJ’s 19, the last two coming with three minutes left in the game. Roberts, Earlington, Williams and Dunn committed zero defensive fouls in a combined 79 minutes.

•            13 assists SJU had on 31 made baskets, this despite Coach Third Choice complaining during an in the huddle time out that his team was passing the ball around aimlessly and waiting until the last second before hoisting up a lousy shot

•            Attendance was 3400 plus, which means in total they’re down about 6000 seats compared to last year. Which no doubt some of that has to do with them raising ticket prices and some of that has to do with the moribund schedule combined with the Wednesday evening starts but if it continues it’s going to be worri$ome.

•            Shout out to Jim Spanarkle who opined after a St John’s steal that led to a dunk that “that’s a great example of why you don’t want to turn it over,” which I’d much rather he pointed out an example of why you would want to turn it over.

PLAYERS: The other Champagnie brother (14 points, 7 rebounds) continues to impress, although I’m not sure that his leading the team in shots (14) is a winning formula moving forward … It’s too soon to tell whether Rasheed Dunn is a volume scorer or just rusty but his numbers this year (albeit a small sample size) are uncannily like his numbers at St Francis: .34/.25/.81 versus .39/.28/.77. On the bright side he doesn’t seem disinterested defensively. Unlike several of his teammates … Heron (15 points) rebounded nice from his two disappointing NCAA tournament performances against universities Vermont and New Hampshire … Eight and eight from Marcellus Earlington, until recently deemed by the intelligentsia as not a D 1 player … Roberts with 11 rebounds … LJ Figueroa (nine points three rebounds) looked completely disinterested in the game of basketball in 20 minutes … the inferior competition evidently reanimated David Cadaver (9 points, five rebounds)  much to the delight of the Red and White Club (because racism jokes never get old) … Sears, Williams and Rutherford had nine points and six rebounds between them. One the one hand they don’t really matter. On the other Williams look lost, which he didn’t look last year … Walk-ons J Cole and T O’Connell (I CBA to look up their Christian names) were rewarded with a combined two minutes for their hard work in practice. I’d predict the over under on how long it’ll be before CTC’s seeming penchant for leaving his starters in during garbage time results in a season ending injury for one of them but that might be a jinx

NOTES: Filed under ball-washing: Various astute St John’s fans spent Tuesday night providing live updates of the Vermont Virginia game, presumably on the theory that if Vermont could hang with Virgia and Saint John’s could hang with Vermont then St John’s can hang with Virginia. This of course is nonsense and those people are dolts. What happened at SJ over the weekend was that top 25 Vermont had an early season game against #7 Virginia circled on its calendar but before that they had to play a meaningless out of conference road game against cupcake St John’s, a perennial national laughingstock picked to finish last in its conference. Predictably Vermont put in a classic trap game performance, played down to its opponent, did  just enough to not lose and went on to do pretty well in the game it was looking forward to when it was looking past SJ. Only the most delusional fans would think that a game between two tournament teams is a barometer of what the upcoming season portends for SJU, which at this point at least it seems that going .500 would be the ceiling … Much like me a mere five games in, Fox Sports seems to have run out of ideas. They last night at halftime re-ran a hackneyed who’s-on-St John’s-Mount Rushmore bit they did only two games ago. (In between they did the Big East Mount Rushmore, so it’s not like they’re completely boring hacks.) Anyway the SJU answer is Buck Freeman, Joe Lapchick, Lou and Chris Mullin. The Big East Mt Rushmore is a bit more challenging. Do you pick players who contributed for a maximum of four years or coaches who were there forever? Obviously the latter and the answer is (leaving out Dave Gavitt): Jim Calhoun, Jim Boehiem, John Thompson and Norm Roberts. A player Rushmore would be Patrick, Mullin, Pearl and someone else. I’m tempted to go with Walter Berry, but that would make me a bit of a homer, so maybe Richard Hamilton instead … Columbia university – an actual Ivy League school, not a public Ivy or an ACC Ivy but an actual Ivy – is one of the oldest schools in the US blah blah blah, it’s too boring to go into and their mascot is the Lion, which is interesting only the extent that that they’re the third Lion is a row St John’s has played. What isn’t boring is a list of famous Columbia graduates, which is so long and prodigious that I almost feel guilty about appending it here, but it’s a long season and I’m already sick of this. So. Columbia grads include athletes Chet Forte, who at 5’8″ beat out Wilt Chamberlain for college basketball player of the year in 1957 – Forte averaged 28 and 4 while Wilt averaged 29 and 18, so you can see why they gave it to the white guy; first round draft pick Jim McMillian; Jack Molinas, a college basketball fixer (he was responsible for future Hall of Famers Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown being banned from the NBA) who was murdered by the mob in Vegas; baseball HOFer’s Lou Gehrig, Sandy Koufax and Eddie Collins, the latter of whom instituted the Red Sox policy of not signing black players – Pumpsie Green, the first one, died just this past July; NFL HOFer Sid Luckman; and former Detroit Lion great John Witkowski, who completed 13 passes in an illustrious four year career. Politicians include four US presidents (Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama); founding father Alexander Hamilton; and former Czech president Václav Havel. Musicians Béla Bartók, both Rogers and Hammerstein and Art Garfunkle, which makes this is the only sentence you will ever read that contains both “Bela Bartok” and “Art Garfunkle.” Writers Jerzy Kosinski, EL Doctorow, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Heller, Langston Hughes, JD Salinger, Herman Wouk and Hunter Thompson; with a special shout out to the biologist Hans Zinsser, whose Rats Lice and History is the funniest book ever written about typhus and John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the great American novel before killing himself; Hollywood types William Goldman (Butch Cassidy), Herman Mankiewicz (coauthor of Citizen Caine), director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Network), Jimmy Cagney, David O Selznick (Gone With the Wind), Pat Boone, Brians Dennehy and de Palma, Katie Holmes, Al Lewis, and Anthony “Psycho” Perkins. And variously the unctuous David Stern; the lovely Bella Abzug; the patriot Roy Cohn; the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg; noted chubster Meghan McCain; and fictional characters Meadow Soprano, Peter Parker and Jessie Spano.

saint john's, Vermont

Prunelight in Vermont

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At least we got that out the way, and by that I mean St John’s first loss of the season, 70-68 Saturday evening to the Vermont Catamites Catamounts at Carnesecca Arena. I know that the faithful consider these sorts of games – and by these sorts I mean games against the sort of no name teams that Lou used to feast on in antediluvian preseasons – are considered games St John’s “should win,” but really only by the faithful who haven’t been paying attention the last 20 years. It’s akin to thinking that Spain should defeat Israel in a war because they once had a very nice armada. Which is to say that might have been true in the deep recesses of history but nowadays not so much. My opinion is that there no games that St John’s should win and very many they’re lucky to have. But then I’m something of a pessimist. And yet as pessimistic as I am – and my glass is half empty and the full half is bile – I’m hoping that some good comes of it. In the grand scheme of things this one loss is nothing. This is not a post season team so even beating a projected NCAA tournament team like Vermont wouldn’t have done anything for their resume, because they won’t need a resume, because no one will be offering them a job. (If my crystal ball is accurate and it usually is they’ll be a couple of games over .500 when the BE season starts on New Year’s Eve, which means that Coach Third Choice is on his way to the first losing season of his career.) And neither is the some good my usual unfettered joy at seeing the air go pffft out of other people’s balloons, although there’s some of that. What good might come of it is that the team wakes up to the idea that they’re not very good, because they’re not, and that for the season to not be a complete fucking disaster they’re going to have to try a wee bit harder than they’ve been trying, which is not very. Because so far they’ve been chucking up threes and taking crazy floaters in the lane and reaching for the ball as their man blows by them and putting about as much effort into denying the entry pass as the bouncer at a Bangkok brothel. Which might pass muster against Central Connecticut State but won’t when SJU runs into the juggernaut that is DePaul …

All of which said, the game was an entertaining affair of the sort that often happens when two talented mid majors stink up the joint: Vermont shot 40 percent from the floor, 25 percent from three, 66 percent from the FT line; not to be underdone SJ shot 35 percent from the floor, 25 from three, 65 percent from the FT line – their third game in a row under 70 percent for you Eddie Mushes scoring at home – had a mere six assists on 20 plus made baskets and turned the ball over 16 times, In fact if they hadn’t shot 22 more free throws than Vermont the game would have been over by the second TV time out in the second half, because whatever halftime adjustments CTC made failed miserably: SJ was up six at the break and down seven five minutes later … Speaking of awful basketball Pat Driscoll and company didn’t help matters by calling a foul a minute, including a half dozen arbitrary and capricious charges that might have been blocks and several suspicious goaltendings. On the bright side SJ once again mainly got the benefit of the whistle, which is I think CTC being rewarded for not chirping at the refs all game ala Mullin … Anyway, as one genyioius said “we only lost by two” and as another, “On to Columbia.”

PLAYERS: LJ Figueroa had a double double, including an inefficient 14 points (4-13 from the floor, 3-7 from three and 3-6 from the FT line, where he’s at 60 percent for the year) and 10 rebounds … Josh Roberts had 13 rebounds and eight blocks: kudos to Matt Abudamessiah for spotting his talent and to Chris Mullin for nurturing it … the other Champagnie brother had nine points and six rebounds and was the only player to not miss at least one free throw … Earlington had eight points, seven rebounds and three steals in 20 minutes. He’s more and more reminding me of a former jack of all trades basketball renaissance costco batman. He doesn’t defend like that guy but that guy didn’t defend like that guy when he was a first semester sophomore either … Mustapha Heron had another NCAA tournament performance: he was 3-11 from the floor with four turnovers …Nate Rutherford and Greg Williams both had identical lines: no points, one block and two turnovers in 13 minutes – perhaps they’re twins? – and Damien Spears and David Cadaver played nine minutes between them. That’s carry the one two points, five rebounds, five TOs and one assist in 35 minutes from what projects to be the seven to ten slots on a team that relies on a system that goes ten deep. This does not bode well … the big news this week of course was that Rasheed Dunn received an eligibility waiver from the NCAA. On the one hand, good for the kid, because fuck the NCAA. On the other hand was the reaction of the most delusional fan base in the world – I read yesterday comparisons between Dunn and Pearl Washington and between Marcellus Earlington and Charles Barkley and Draymond Green – which proclaimed Dunn the missing piece in SJ’s resurgence under coach iron mike CTC based on careful viewing of two-minute highlight videos they watched on their phones. The fact is that Dunn had a 1-1 A2T ratio and shot 38 percent from the floor and 25 percent from three on a NEC team that was in his two years there 17-45 and he hasn’t played organized basketball in a year and a half. Unless there’s some sort of Cedric Jackson reverse osmosis miracle on the horizon I wouldn’t get your hopes up. In limited minutes yesterday he seemed to pay attention on defense and doesn’t seem bashful on the offensive end – he took more shots than Heron in fewer minutes (including a game tying three with 19 seconds left, which was an awful shot until it went in) and made more too although the way Heron’s been playing that’s not saying much.

NOTES: Just as dook is one of the finest Ivy league schools in the ACC, UVM is one of the finest of the so-called public ivies, which include William & Mary, Miami University, UCLA, and interestingly University of North Carolina, which evidently is so advanced academically that the students don’t even need to attend classes. Despite being a team St John’s should beat Vermont has made the NCAA tournament seven times this century, which includes as a #13 seed an upset of Syracuse (which SU squad included Gerry McNamara and Hakim Warrick) in the first round in 2005; they lost in the next round to Michigan State, who went on the final four … Vermont’s coach John Becker was 6–44 at Gauudet in Division II before he got to Vermont, where he won 100 conference wins in the fourth-fewest total games in NCAA men’s basketball, tying Bill Self … Famous attendees include former Cleveland State coach Rollie Massimino; the philosopher John Dewey, whose theories of pedegogy [sic] are directly responsible for the sorry state of education in the United States; Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge; Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman and Mike Gordon, three fourths of the appalling jam band phish; and perhaps most notably the mass murderer H. H. Holmes, who’s credited with 200 kills, which if true is close to a land speed record: besides his sheer numbers Holmes is notable for having built a specially designed “murder castle” in close proximity to the 1893 World’s Fair, from whence he lured his victims, whose bones and body parts he sold on the black market – after he fucked their corpses and stripped them of their flesh it goes without saying – which ingenuity his wikipedia article ascribes demurely to his having “an entrepreneurial spirit.” Which, nice work if you can get it … Vermont the state is the country’s safest per capita and also the leading producer of maple syrup, which I’m not sure I see a correlation unless the syrup makes Vermonters too fat and lethargic to get off their couches. If so that would be in direct contrast to their energetic forebears, who were in the 1930’s leading practioners of eugenics, which led the state to declare illegal marriage and procreation by what they called the feebleminded, which to Vermonters then meant French Canadians – which is understandable – minorities and especially the native Abenaki – most of whom were disappeared into the state’s copious mental hospitals, never to be heard from again –  and the differently abled. It should come as no surprise then that Vermont is the whitest state in the union at 96 percent because what nonwhite in their right mind would want to live there, which if I understand the current zeitgeist correctly makes Bernie Sanders a racists, which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, him being a democrat.

new hampshire, saint john's

Miss New Hampshire?

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Saint John’s came back from a 12-point deficit to sneak by one of the worst programs (Hi Fordham!) in the history of college basketball at Carnesecca Arena Tuesday night 74-61 and if that isn’t enough to set off some alarm bells then I don’t know what is. Because there are only a few explanations and none of them are pleasant. Either Coach Third Choice is having a hard time motivating his players, which seems unlikely as he’s already in six short months created an entirely new culture wherein his team will run walk on hot coals to run through a brick wall for him, so it can’t be that; or they’re looking past their opponents  – one wag suggested that UNH was “a classic trap game,” presumably before their important homecoming showdown against crosstown rival Vermont; or they’re playing down to the cupcakes. But Occam’s razor suggests that they stink and that’s where my money is. I mean, okay, stink may be a little harsh. Mercer stinks. Whereas SJU’d be a contender for the national championship if they played in Division II and a contender for the conference championship if they played in the MAAC. Unfortunately they play in the Big East, which this year has lost one game so far as a conference and where perennial laughingstock DePaul just kicked the bejesus out of Iowa on the road. Despite a steady stream of ‘this is going to be a dangerous team that surprises some people’ chatter from the homers I suspect  that ‘this is going to be on of those pesky teams that no one wants to play but nobody minds beating.’ Still, that’s down the road and for the time being they remain undefeated. At least until Saturday …

The box score reflects SJ’s ineptness: they shot 40 percent from the floor, for the second game in a row 60 percent from the free throw line – Wow! When was the last time that happened Eddie Mush! – and turned the ball over 15 times. The only thing that saved them was that UNH was worse: they shot 38 percent from the floor and 50 percent from the FT line and turned the ball over 15 times and not a lot of that had to do with SJ’s defense, except the free throw shooting obviously. If there was a bright spot – and there wasn’t – it’d be the 17 offensive rebounds, which is I think without looking more than they had all of last season … For all the talk of 40 minutes of hell and Anderson’s (I refuse to call him Iron Mike and so should you) diabolical use of his bench only seven players played double figures and five of them played ~ 30 minutes. Whether this was a strategic decision based on match-ups and personnel or CTC abandoning his vaunted system at the first sign of adversity is a question for wiser minds than my own.

PLAYERS: Absent LJ Figueroa – he had a career-high 25 points (including 5-9 from three), eight rebounds, five steals – CTC’s cadre of ball washers would this morning have some splainin’ to do … Champagnie had another near double double – 11 points and nine rebounds – and Josh Roberts had in 33 minutes (!) 12 points and seven rebounds along with four blocks, which puts him about second in the country total and tied for fourth percentage-wise. Regarding that Marquette’s Theo John is currently averaging eight blocks a game, which prediction: that number comes down … Unfortunately that’s the end of the good news. Mustapha Heron must have thought this was an NCAA tournament game: he scored five points on 2-12 from the floor … Nick Rutherford had six rebounds and five assists which is nice but is averaging close to three turnovers a game and shooting 20 percent from three for the year and 66 percent from the FT line, which if that continues, that’s going to be a problem … Earlington had eight points and four rebounds in 12 minutes and was involved in something of an ironic sequence where he was called for flopping at one end of the floor – which if flopping was a point of emphasis a couple of years ago several former dook players would have been hanged – and a charge on the very next possession … Great White Hope David Cadaver contributed little in nine minutes and Damien Sears less in fewer than that

NOTES: I sojourned in New Hampshire briefly in my youth, drawn by the lure of cheap booze from the government-run liquor stores and no state income tax and the delicious irony of living in a state where convicts make license plates that say “Live Free Or Die,” but didn’t last very long there despite those boons: the arts are nonexistent – the state’s greatest cultural achievement is a rock that looks allegedly like an old man –

the winter weather is atrocious, and the citizenry comprises the sort of rock-ribbed can’t get there from here republicans that make even rock-ribbed can’t get there from here republicans such as myself rethink their rock-ribbed can’t get there from here republicanism. Not to mention that it’s next to Massachusetts, the worst state in the union other than California, California being peopled in the main by mellow extroverted assholes in Bermuda shorts. I can’t place the year I was there exactly but it was long enough ago that I had a square job waiting tables at a downtown Concord restaurant run by the sort of Greeks who hate their customers only slightly less than they hate the staff. There was nothing much notable about it except that one day I waited on alleged comedian Pat Paulsen, late then of Rowan and Martin and the Smothers Brothers, who was running for president, which he did every four years. His wife had a vanilla milkshake while Pat took a shit; she was nice enough but he didn’t leave a tip, which isn’t surprising as he was running as a democrat … New Hamphire’s sports mascot is the wildcat, by which I assume they mean mountain lion, because it’d be weird if they named their team after Johnny Bench, Ernie Ladd or Andres Galarraga, big cats all. I never saw a lion while I was there but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any: I never saw a minority either and I assume there are some as the state’s population is allegedly one and a half percent black. Which perhaps explains the futility of UNH’s basketball program, which is described in its Wikipedia article as having “a long-standing reputation for futility … since 1903 no Wildcats team has made it to the NCAA or NIT tournaments and no Wildcat player has made it to the NBA.” Current Coach Bill Herrion  – who can perhaps be forgiven as he learned everything he knows about basketball studying at the feet of Mike Jarvae at George Washington – is 172-251 in 14 years at UNH and has had two winning season in that time and yet his job seems pretty secure; his predecessor Phil Rowe was 45-125 in six years; and those are two relative success stories compared to the conga line of incompetents that preceded them, a conga line so incompetent that they defy description, even for a writer of my prodigious talent and access to a thesaurus: Jeff Jackson was 21 and 61; Jim Boylan – who went on to coach the Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers – was 15-69; and Gary Friel was 188-335 in his twenty year career. The last coach to have a measure of success was someone called Butch Cowell (119-54), who also coached football and baseball, except when the university was unable to field sports teams due to a little thing I like to call “World War One.” … The university’s notable alumni – and I hesitate to plow this ground as I notice that Norman Rose over at Rumble has cleverly come up with this idea all by himself – include major league baseball players Carlton Fisk and Del Bisonette – the first player to hit a bases loaded triple and home run in the same game and as a rookie only one of five players in MLB history to be walked with the bases loaded (the others include Barry Bonds and a presumably sober Josh Hamilton); the novelist John Irving, a first rate writer who’s scared to write a first rate novel; Michael Kelly, who edited the work of literary fraud Stephen Glass before going on to die needlessly in the first Gulf War, leaving behind a widow and orphan, because journalism; the saxophonist Jeff Coffin; and a  bunch of hockey players and Canadian football players, which who cares … Fox Sports 2 had four halftime analysts which I thought a bit of overkill for a Tuesday night preseason game until I learned that they were naming – wait for it – the Mount Rushmore of SJ’s basketball. That this turned out to be merely an opportunity for these dopes to shout out the names of random past players – Willie Glass! Bill Wennington! Sergio Luyk! – shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. What didn’t come as a surprise was that histrionic personality disorder poster boy Steve Lavin opined that one of his players – D’Angelo Harrison – should be considered, as he might have been the school’s all-time leading scorer “if I hadn’t suspended him,” which statement allowed Lavin simultaneously to thrust himself into the center of the conversation while diminishing the accomplishments of one of the players directly responsible for his meager success. What a repulsive, repulsive person. No wonder Mary Ann cucked him.

The center cannot hold. And neither can the point guard.