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\ngot 15 million more votes than Obama the light bringer, who healed the planet and slowed the rise of the oceans. In which case I don\u2019t know what to tell you.<\/p>\nThe endgame of this all is evident and ordained. You will wear the mask. You will live in the pod. You will take the vaccine. You will exist on line. You will not fuck. You will denounce your neighbors. You will eat the bugs. And, most importantly: you will not ask questions.<\/p>\n
Considering which I thought: what better way to end this shittiest of years than with a few dystopian observations about the past and future of the obscurity that is Saint John\u2019s basketball. Which past is increasingly murky and which future is, I think, none too bright either.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no need to rehash in detail the conga line of shit sandwiches geriatric SJ fans such as myself have had to endure over the years: Brain Mahoney, the Jarvae, poor Norm Roberts, mentally-ill Steve Lavin; even the great Chris Mullins failed us. Neither myself nor Mrs. Fun are professional football fans \u2013 I\u2019ve followed the Detroit Lions for 30 odd years and she\u2019s a former Jets season ticket holder \u2013 but other than those two moribund [sic] franchises you\u2019d be hard pressed to argue that the Saint John\u2019s basketball program is not the most inept, bungling futile team in the history of sports, the St. Louis Browns be damned. Which brings us to our latest trainwreck in waiting, Iron Mike Anderson. About whom two things.<\/p>\n
(1) If throwing a bunch of two and three star recruits onto the court to play 40 minutes of pressure defense was a winning formula (a) at least one other person would do or have done it and no one has or does and (b) it would have worked for Anderson more than twice over the course of his long career and at least once this decade. Whereas Anderson\u2019s last real and almost only success was in 2008, when he made the Elite Eight at Missouri. Since then he\u2019s not made it past the round of 32 in 12 years.<\/p>\n
What strikes me about Anderson\u2019s fidelity to his alleged discovery is that it suggests an extreme sense of self-regard: he seems to think that he\u2019s figured out something about basketball that the greatest minds in the game \u2013 and obviously that\u2019s a relative thing, as most good basketball coaches are vaguely retarded and most great ones are autistic \u2013 have to the extent that they considered it found it wanting. Other than Nolan Richardson \u2013 who coached during the administration of Bush the Elder \u2013 no one has had any sort of success with 40 minutes of hell in 40-odd years. The fact is that most coaches press only out desperation, at the end of games that are almost lost causes: Anderson though, he does it as a matter of course, which suggests that all of his games are lost causes. Despite which cavalcade of failure he does the same thing the year in and the year out \u2013 the definition of insanity – and all he has to show for it is an in-game graphic noting that like Tom Izzo and Mark Few he\u2019s never had a losing season. Which is where the comparison between Anderson and Izzo and Few ends.<\/p>\n
(b) All coaches have systems – which I guess should be self-evident but maybe it’s not. Dopey Steve Lavin had a system. Chris Mullin had a system. Even Norm had a system. But whatever schemes they run for the best of them – Schrewshrinski, Boehiem, Izzo, Bill Self, Jay Wright, Tony Bennett, whoever – an important part and perhaps the most important part of their systems is that they recruit the best players possible. In fact, they find getting the best players so important that they all cheat to get them and some like Wade Wilson and Sean Miller to the point of risking prison. Mike Anderson though – who hasn’t won anything at the major college level ever and whose only real accomplishment is a self-serving statistic – he thinks he can recruit vaguely competent players and beat better coaches than himself equipped with better players than he has based on a fugazi system designed to confuse morons who haven\u2019t prepared for it adequately. The bad news for Anderson is that there\u2019s only a few morons coaching in the Big East (see also Leitao, Dave, who despite his obvious intellectual handicaps will make an NCAA tournament before Anderson does, precisely because he recruits better than Anderson does) and we’ve seen how so far that\u2019s worked out: SJ was five and 13 in conference last year and this year they\u2019re dead last in the BE (or at least they were when I started writing this) and a couple three lucky bounces away from 3-7. Which carry the one is not particularly good, even if it is only year two.<\/p>\n
If you need further evidence of Coach Third Choice\u2019s (\u00a9) delusions about his own competence, look no further than his allotment of playing time: of the seven players this year averaging more than 20 minutes per game \u2013 so much for 10-deep 40 minutes of hell – only Greg Williams \u2013 arguably the team\u2019s best player – was recruited by someone other other than Himself. Anyone reading this raise your hand if you think that Avery Patterson II aka Vince Cole and Dylan Wusu should be averaging 10 minutes more a game than Marcellus Earlington or that John McGriff should be playing the same number of minutes as Josh Roberts. It\u2019s almost as if Iron Mike would rather lose with his own players than win with someone else\u2019s. Which this year is almost the only thing he\u2019s doing an adequate job of. Unless he\u2019s already coaching for 2022, in which case make sure you renew your season tickets early, because wait until next year bums.<\/p>\n
Speaking of his players, for all the credit CTC is given for making them better, the evidence for that is scant. Other than Williams – who\u2019s on the sort of normal trajectory for improvement that one would expect in a four star recruit – who\u2019s improved? Last year Heron and Figueroa – SJ\u2019s two best players by far during the Anderson years – got worse, and half the players Anderson brought in – Sears, Steere and Rutherford – were abject failures on a last place team. Champagnie \u2013 Kyle Cuffe with a functioning cerebral cortex – is seemingly a nice four-year player who came to school more or less fully formed. As well Posh Alexander, who although he seems like he\u2019ll be a nice four-year player has been exposed as a freshman against more mature Division One talent. Rasheed Dunn is the same player he was last year, which is not much of one. As promising as Earlington looked last year he\u2019s regressed, as have Caraher and Roberts to the extent that they\u2019ve had the opportunity to demonstrate that they\u2019re getting worse by the minute. Exit question: who\u2019s Anderson and his crack staff developed? Exit answer: no one.<\/p>\n
According to his mindless ball washers at redman dot com, SJ is lucky to have CTC. They explain, paraphrasing, that huzzah, SJ finally has a coach with a digestible system, which by they mean a system that morons such as themselves can understand, which paraphrase I agree with to the extent that most posters there are to a man morons. What I disagree with is: I don’t want to watch a coach\u2019s system and especially this one. What I want to watch in the few miserable years I have left on this planet is good basketball players playing good basketball, which good players and good basketball have been inevident over the past two years and I fear will continue to be inevident for as long as Mike Anderson is coach. Because if you look at this basketball team, this much is<\/em> evident: the half court offense stinks, the half court defense sucks, and the players are mediocre, and if his recruiting thus far is any indication they\u2019re likely to remain so. And the moral is: it\u2019s still early and it\u2019s only going to get worse; and the prediction is: next year there will be no in-game graphics comparing Coach Iron Mike to Tom Izzo. Because under Anderson this program will continue its long swirl downward toward the MAAC.<\/p>\nWe have to thank for Coach Third Choice shovel-faced Athletic Director Mike Cragg. Or more properly Jeff Capel \u2013 a wunderkind 30 and 36 in his first two years at Pitt – who Cragg called for advice after his first two head coaching choices \u2013 former dookie Bobby Hurley and a midwest mediocrity called Porter Moser \u2013 played him for a fool and laughed in his face, respectively. Capel allegedly told Cragg that Anderson would be a home run, although whether for Saint John\u2019s qua Saint John\u2019s or for Capel\u2019s NYC recruiting prospects is anyone\u2019s guess. Having been so advised, Cragg pounced. That that pounce saved Saint John\u2019s from head coach James Jones is cold porridge.<\/p>\n
Naturally the dumb as fence posters over at redman dot com are enamored of Cragg, on the grounds that by hiring him Saint John\u2019s had finally shed the mom and pop mentality that had led it to its dire straits, nabbing a professional AD who knows what it takes to win at a big time program. Newsflash for those bozos: Cragg\u2019s entire professional success is based upon his ability to parrot \u201cYes Coach Screwshrenski, of course Coach Schewshevsky, whatever you say Coach Kruszevsky.\u201d Because having stepped into a dynasty at dewk Cragg\u2019s signature accomplishment was not fucking it up by having anything approaching an original thought, which is why it\u2019s fitting that his major accomplishment in his tenure at dook was overseeing the 18 million dollar construction of the Mike Ksrushevski Athletic Center, 18 million being 17 million more than Redjedef paid for the Sphinx at Giza.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s that. I wish there was some good news, but there isn\u2019t. Because for Saint John’s fans the new normal is the recent past.<\/p>\n
So to recap:<\/p>\n
You will wear the mask.
\nYou will live in the pod.
\nYou will take the vaccine.
\nYou will not fuck.
\nYou will denounce your neighbors.
\nYou will eat the bugs.\u00a0 Oh yes, you will eat the bugs and thank you sir may I have another.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nAnd most importantly: you will root for losers. Because the beatings will continue until morale improves.<\/p>\n
Ho ho ho.<\/p>\n
* * * *<\/h1>\n
Tonight is Saint Sylvester\u2019s Day, or as you heathens call it, New Year\u2019s Eve. (Sylvester was a 2nd century pope who converted Constantine and his mater to the true faith before achieving sainthood by miraculously saving Rome from a dragon.) On this night custom dictates that revelers gather with friends and acquaintances to carouse in an atmosphere of forced gaiety, accompanied by the mellifluous strains of Guy Lombardo, with narration by such luminaries as Cathy Griffin and Ryan Seacrest, who\u2019s terribly butch and not at all a tortured closeted homosexual. Needless to say I\u2019ll be fucking off to bed early, because I don\u2019t drink with amateurs, even virtually. And this year so will you. Fuck off to bed early I mean. Because in 2020 celebration is verboten, our darkest days being ahead of us, at least according to our senile child molesting president in waiting, you know, the one who got more votes than any other candidate in the history of what used to be the republic. So this year there will be no parties, no Times Square, no wassail, no party hats and noise makers, and especially no balls dropping (except perhaps at Seacrest\u2019s house). So happy new year and welcome to the great reset; enjoy the new normal and may god have mercy on your souls. But first, a little sugar:<\/p>\n
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