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.