Category Archives: saint john’s

saint john's, villanova

Here’s to the Losers

Leave a comment

And so another season in the books, it being early March before Selection Sunday, on which Sunday St John’s fans will anxiously await the announcement of the NIT bracket, because another SJU season is well over. Welcome to the autopsy.

As have been most St John’s years since around 1990 this one was a failure; frustrated fans will question the absence of the word “abject” preceding failure in that sentence; and the histrionics among you will call it humiliating rather than abject. But longtime fans know that as humiliations go this one was lesser than countless others SJU has endured through the decades.

SJU entered the season on the come (wait for it), returning the presumptive BE player of the year Julian Champagnie, freshman of the year turned sophomore Posh Alexander, and reigning Coach of the Year Iron Mike Anderson. Preseason it seemed like this just might be the year that wait till next year bums came true, finally justifying the annual October delusions of the ignorant fans who inhabit the internet sewer known as redmandotcom (RDC). Instead, SJU left the season having been cummed on. (And there’s the pay-off: entered on the come, left cummed on. Your welcum.) I’d have said butkaked but besides ruining the joke that would have befuddled the geriatrics at RDC: Paultzman would change his forum avatar to some oriental whore being showered in sperm and Paul would add a Japanese banner to the site and bloviating gasbag LawManFan (LMF) would write a tight 7000 words on why Mikes Anderson and Cragg are just the right guys to lead the program through vesuvian fountains of jizm and then stupid would pile upon stupider and even stupider until the thread was locked by some drama-queen moderator for being off-topic relative to posts about the nuanced virtues of various Suffolk County fine dining restaurants that put Miracle Whip on lobster. And we wouldn’t want that.

<Interlude the first>

You have to hand it to the redmandot dumbers. They’re currently in the midst of a three-month 1700 post thread trying to determine whether Mike Anderson – 22-33 in conference, no post season appearances after three years – is “the guy.” Note to those dopes: he’s not. Here for example is the aforementioned gaseous blowhard LawManFan’s take from a couple of months ago:

I am completely satisfied that the program is in the best hands it has been in for over 20 years with A.D. Cragg and Coach Anderson… It seems to me that this staff has a clear idea of how they want to build the program and how each season fits into that plan [and] Anderson seems to have a clear vision of what sort of players he wants to add to the program, how to develop them, and what sacrifices he needs to make to [bring] in players with fewer stars next to their name and [turn] them into studs in Year 2 or 3.

Did you get that? Mike Anderson has a “clear vision” of the “sacrifices” he needs to make to “bring in players with fewer stars,” which strategy encompasses a seventh-place year three finish as an integral part of a plan carefully crafted to people St John’s with burgeoning 2-star studs who will return SJU to its rightful place in the college basketball landscape.

The stupid, it burns.

Even when slapped in the face by reality – the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist as the kids say – poor LMF still doesn’t get it. Here’s him now:

The story of the season is that the team just didn’t have quite enough to get over the hump… Team wound up with a whole lot of close losses because it just didn’t have quite enough to get over the hump… Hopefully next season will offer a more well-rounded roster that will get over the hump

TLDR: this team “just didn’t have quite enough to get over the hump… just didn’t have quite enough to get over the hump.”

But why belabor this. Me, I’m gonna go get the papers, get the papers.

</interlude the first>

Speaking of Miracle Whip, this year SJU feasted on preseason cupcakes (albeit some of the gnosh comprising bitten nails), beat two teams it wasn’t expected to – Seton Hall fresh off losing its best player and a Xavier team in the midst of its usual end of season collapse – and otherwise sucked, losing several it should have won in comical fashion, including a humiliating loss to Pitt, which Pitt is the same Pitt coached by the same Jeff Capel who assured shovel-faced hack AD Mike Cragg that hiring the then recently-fired Mike Anderson was a “homerun,” the obvious question being a homerun for which, Pitt or Saint John’s. All of which culminating in a last second loss in the BE tournament to Villanova, in a game in which St John’s blew a 17-point second-half lead on their world’s most famous arena, purportedly their home court.

TLDR: this year SJU beat no one of consequence and lost to everyone of consequence.

I’d like to say that I can’t imagine the disappointment that St John’s fans feel after this season, but I can, having until recently been one. I can absolutely understand your disappointment. Which makes my delight in your suffering even more so, empathy being a whole other matter.

Instead of your fanboi distress consider my anti-fan elation: having grown finally to hate SJU I actively root for them to lose every game where the team flight hasn’t plowed into a mountain, which conflagration would leave me erect. This year SJU squeaked by various preseason patsies – scheduled to preserve Iron Mike’s sole accomplishment, his precious he’s never had a losing season streak, which shut up, nobody cares – lost to every out of conference major team it played (Kansas, Indiana and Pitt) and stunk in conference (thank god for Georgetown amirite? shout out to Butler), losing winnable games in every absurd which way imaginable. For us haters – and we are st john’s legion – this season couldn’t have been sweeter. Add to that fructuous mix Mike Schrewshrenski’s exit from Cameron over the weekend past and this might be the most enjoyable CBB season I’ve experienced since Marcus Hatten last passed a drug test. Because this year – much as I predicted – Saint John’s was an abomination, nightly ill-prepared and awful. They can’t shoot – from the floor, from the free throw line or from three – they don’t rebound, and their half-court games both defensive and offensive are laughable. And all of this landing firmly on the womanly shoulders of Mike “Home Run” Anderson, whose complete lack of strategic and situational awareness belies a peculiar misunderstanding of the rudiments of basketball, a sport he purports to coach.

TLDR: Mike Anderson stinks – he’s a hack strategist with a fugazi system designed to not get the best out of his mediocre recruits – and St John’s will stink for as long as he’s coach.

Speaking of awful recruiting, imagine you’re a coddled five-star teenage athlete with dreams of playing in the NBA and Mike Anderson and his nephew or whoever that guy who sits next to him on the bench is come to your house to try to convince you and your handlers that the road to Springfield starts with playing in a no-trick pony system that emphasizes a full-court helter-skelter defense that no one above middle-school AAU plays, which is one that doesn’t flatter your talent, or your skills, or your ambition. Look what I did for Julian Champagnie MA could say: I took him from a near-certain second round NBA pick with a guaranteed contract and coached him up into the Croatian lottery. Question: who’s going to sign up for that? Answer: Montez Mathis. Everyone else is going to Seton Hall.

Because Mike Anderson’s system isn’t designed to benefit his players, it’s designed to flatter Mike Anderson: when St John’s wins a game it’s because of Mike’s skillful implementation of 40-minutes of hell and when SJ loses it’s because his players didn’t want it enough or get after it enough and ended up leaving something out on the floor. Either that or it was the refs fault or the sun was shining in Iron Mike’s eyes. The other day he said after an eight point loss that “the free throw [was] the big difference” in a game with a six free throw differential where his players missed six free throws. I’d say you couldn’t make this guy up but it turns out you wouldn’t have to.

<interlude the second>

One of the things the no-hopers at RDC often have recourse to when discussing Iron Mike’s evident to everyone but his ball-washers flaws is his character: he is, they say, “classy.” Leave aside that those mutts wouldn’t recognize class if a class of classicists held a master class on The Theory of the Leisure Class in their colons. (And note that as I usually caution, if someone from RDC mentions “class” in your presence you should check to make sure you still have both your kidneys.) Pardon me, but what exactly is classy about Mike Anderson? Is it the way he blames everyone else for his failures? Is it the way he dog-houses kids and buries them on the bench? Is it his extensive collection of sweat clothes? I mean, I could spend pages describing Mike Anderson and the word “classy” wouldn’t occur to me. But then, I have a pretty extensive vocabulary.

</interlude the second>

I read on Twitter some fan talking about St John’s being a sleeping giant needing only Rick Pitino to awaken it, this being a sentiment often heard among delusional St John’s followers. Me, if I’m Rick Pitino – and who’s to say I’m not – the crowning achievement of my career would be telling St John’s to go fuck itself when it comes hat in hand begging me to resurrect its moribund program. I mean sure, Pitino seems like a guy who’s not adverse to sloppy seconds or even thirds, but even he must have some sort of minimal standards.) Newsflash to those dopes: St John’s is not a sleeping giant. St John’s is a fat bald old man in a red and white sweater lying in a hospital bed with a DNR tag hanging from his toe. And @MikeCraggSJU is Dr. Kevorkian.

Imagine being Cragg and having to make the first important decision of your career – which career up to then consisted of saying yes Coach Khrewshrensy, of course Coach Shreshewski, what ever you say Coach Khrytsrenski – and after whiffing first on the wrong Hurley and then on a Midwest mediocrity Christian name Porter you ask for advice CBA-lifer turned coaching failure Jeff Capel, merely because he’s Coach K adjacent and K’s letting your calls go to voicemail. And worse then you take it, leading to Mike Anderson, aka Coach Third Choice (CTC, ©). And then worser you double down on stupid in the second most important decision of your career and extend CTC until 2026, that’d be the same CTC who’s won .40 of his BE games at St John’s. Which is carry the one one win in ten better than the universally reviled Norm Roberts achieved, who carry the one has three times as many final four rings as Lou Carnesescca.

For Cragg to fire Anderson at this point – and Anderson needs to go, his shitiosity is evident to anyone with four functioning sense of five – he’d have to admit to the sort of incompetence that renders him unfit for the first real job he’s had in his adult life. He’d have to resign in disgrace and that’s not happening: bunglers like Cragg don’t fall on their swords, if they did they’d never have gotten to where they’re at. Instead he’ll invest in diversity training and trans-inclusive initiatives and tweet about the girls fencing team and do anything else to distract from the fact that he’s failed at his only real job, which was to return to excellence to the flagship program of a failing commuter university in a crumbling suburb of dying city.

Exit question re Cragg: does anyone believe he was more disappointed by St John’s season-ending losses to Marquette and Villanova than he was by Coach K losing the final home game of his career, and to North Carolina no less. Which event do you think moved Mike Cragg more: seeing Screwskrekci weeping like a big girl’s blouse upon entering Cameron for the last time in front of an emotional crowd comprising his former players aka a herd of NBA draft busts or watching Julian Champagnie and Posh Alexander and Aaron Wheeler play their last games in St John’s uniforms. (And what stupid uniforms the new uniforms are – I don’t doubt that Cragg called Cherokee Parks for advice on the design.) Because I know which way I’m leaning. And it’s not south.

<interlude the third, comprising random LMF stories>

1. LMF once announced that he was going to be coaching a team of middle schoolers and among the five things he was going to make sure they learned was the 2-3 zone. I opined that if he was going to be teaching young people basketball – a subject about which he knows fuck-all – the first thing he should teach them was how to lose gracefully. That comment was deleted by a moderator, presumably because I was being a meanie acting without class. I suspect the moderator was LMF, but the site has about as many moderators as it has regular posters, so it’s hard to be sure. My current favorite is the guy who sits with his finger hovering over the button so he can lock the game thread just as the buzzer sounds. Because RDC is a fetid cesspool, sure, but at least it’s neat.

2. A couple of years ago during the off-season LMF created March Madness type bracket on RDC that pitted poster against poster in a contest relative to their rhetorical skills and basketball knowledge. Your humble narrator went out in the first round. (Which perhaps explains my bitterness.) Whereas LMF, being a modest sort, had himself losing a tough one in the semi-finals to the eventual champion. Poor LMF: he just couldn’t get over the hump, get over the hump.

</interlude the third, comprising random LMF stories>

Tradition dictates that at this point in the post-mortum we grade the players, but who cares, none of them were very good and I doubt that between graduation and attrition any of them will be here next year anyway. Still:

Julian Champagnie seems like a nice kid – some might say classy – but last night’s airball with the game on the line epitomizes his career. He reminds me of no one so much as Kyle Cuffe, albeit softer. He’s the poster boy for players who came back for one more year when taking the money that was on the table was a much better option. Good luck in Serbia. Soriano is softer than Champagnie. (I bet you wouldn’t say that to his face, internet tough guy. No, I wouldn’t, he’s enormous.  Doesn’t make me wrong though.) I like Wusu, he’s a good kid, but he’s crazy, he’s a cowboy, he’s got too much to prove. You gotta watch out for kids like this. (Prediction: Wusu has a Dom Pointer-esque senior year.) Montez Mathis is charitably described as a liability. And other than Wheeler the bench of misfit toys is so bad that Anderson’s scared to put them in the game. Posh I love, how can you not, but he’s always hurt and he’s always going to be hurt because of his size and the way he plays. I wouldn’t be surprised if he enter the portal and you shouldn’t be either. Although maybe he comes back, maybe he likes being a 2-guard who comes off the bench, who knows.

TLDR: to the extent that St John’s has “studs” they’re leaving and next year the rebuild starts once again.

And so that’s that. Another failed basketball season and all that’s left to look forward to now is the Triple Crown, after which the great sports desert looms. As I always say at this juncture: here’s to the losers. See you in the funny papers.

 

 

 

pittsburgh, redmen dot com, saint john's

It’s the Pitts

1 Comment

In the wake of St John’s humiliating defeat in the ridiculously named Empire Classic – which is as far as I can tell is the Holiday Festival with a head injury – a reader writes:

Fun:

What’s it like to be right all the time? Last year when you wrote that

Coach Homerun is plummeting downward. I’d say we’re rapidly approaching Willie Mays getting plonked on the head after circling under a fly ball in center field circa 1973 except Willie Mays was one of the greatest baseball players who ever lived, whereas Mike Anderson is Jeff Capel’s idea of a good idea, and Jeff Capel is an imbecile. If only shovel-faced AD Mike Cragg had called former NBA superstars Cherokee Parks or Shavlik Randolph for advice, things might have turned out differently. Oh well.

I thought you were crazy. Whereas it turns out that you were as usual prescient.

Your biggest fan

Aubie.

Well Aubie – if that is your real name, it seems made up – being a super genius isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Consider: if someone with an IQ one standard deviation above genius goes to the grocery store and has to deal with a clerk with an above average IQ, that’s like a person with an above average IQ going to the grocery store and dealing with a clerk with an extra chromosome. It’s no wonder I drink like it’s my job. If I had a job that is.

So the answer is: being right all the the time is exhausting. It’s like that Twilight Zone episode where Jesse Cardiff (Jack Klugman) beats Fats Brown (Jonathan Winters) at billiards and ends up playing one tomato can after another in a dingy pool hall in Sandusky Ohio:

“Mr. Jesse Cardiff, who became a legend by beating one, but who has found out after his funeral that being the best of anything carries with it a special obligation to keep on proving it. Mr. Fats Brown, on the other hand, having relinquished the champion’s mantle, has gone fishing. These are the ground rules in the Twilight Zone.”

But it’s true, I am almost always right, thanks for noticing. With which comes a special obligation. Which is why I’m glad I wrote for example last year of Coach Iron Mike Anderson’s fugazi system that

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’s last real and almost only success was in 2008, when he made the Elite Eight at Missouri.

concluding that

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 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’re likely to remain so.

Not to mention that I was spot on about dopey Mike Cragg.

We have to thank for Coach Third Choice shovel-faced Athletic Director Mike Cragg. Or more properly Jeff Capel – a wunderkind 30 and 36 in his first two years at Pitt – who Cragg called for advice after his first two head coaching choices – former dookie Bobby Hurley and a Midwest mediocrity called Porter Moser – 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’s qua Saint John’s or for Capel’s NYC recruiting prospects is anyone’s guess. Having been so advised, Cragg pounced. That that pounce saved Saint John’s from head coach James Jones is cold porridge.

Regarding whom (Cragg) I chastised his relentless ball-washers at Redmen.com, or as I like to think of it, home of the worst most ignorant basketball fans on the internet:

Cragg’s entire professional success is based upon his ability to parrot “Yes Coach Screwshrenski, of course Coach Schewshevsky, whatever you say Coach Kruszevsky.” Because having stepped into a dynasty at dewk Cragg’s signature accomplishment was not fucking it up by having anything approaching an original thought, which is why it’s 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.

I could go on, but modesty prevents me.

So to recap.

1. I was right, as usual.

2. Being right all the time is both boring and exhausting.

3. St John’s sucks and will suck for as long as Coach Third Choice is coach, which he will be for a very long time, peter-principle imbecile poster boy Cragg having rewarded his 15–22 (.405) in conference record with a five-year “extension for St. John’s turnaround” (quoting here the idiot @NYPost_Brazille) worth about 15 million dollars.

4. If you think it’s bad now, wait until next year, after Posh transfers to Nebraska.

And to all a good night.

Your pal

Fun

saint john's

Peek a Boo, ICU

2 Comments

 

For the love of god stupids, stop emailing me. I don’t want to be pen pals.

For the record, here’s the explanation for my absence. Several months ago I contracted the Covid 19 deadly Corona Virus and spent several weeks in the hospital on a ventilator and am just now starting to feel myself.

Hah! Just kidding. The deadly Corona Virus Covid 19 pandemic is a hoax perpetrated by globalists to destroy America’s economic and social fabric with the endgame of transferring wealth and power to the cabal of pedophiles who rule the world and forcing your uneducated socially malformed children to slog through rice fields meeting a rigorous daily quota imposed by some over educated art history major cum under-secretary of Rice Paddies in the newly formed Department of Homeland Rice Paddies. Anyone with half a brain can see that, which means that most of you should be able to figure it out.

What really happened was that when St John’s played Villanova at the beginning of February I couldn’t watch the game because my cable company doesn’t carry CBS Sports. In times past I’d have signed up for a free trial of something or other to watch it but this time I figured fuck it, why bother: they’ll probably lose and if they don’t a bunch of St John’s fans will be elated and their happiness will only serve to make me miserable, so instead I went to bed early, and by went to bed early I mean drank Belvedere from the bottle into the wee small hours of the morning.

I awoke bright and early the next day to a message in my inbox, which message had been sent at 11 PM ish the night before. It informed me of a comment on this blog, which at that point had been dormant for half a year – two posts since July – demanding that I “say something nice” about Coach Third Choice, which good luck with that, because he stinks. What struck me was that the commenter’s first thought immediately after his beloved St John’s Red Storm had defeated the third ranked team in the country wasn’t one of celebration or elation, it was of little old me. It turns out that this particular cunt used to send me private messages on various fan boards when I’d mock him (I’ll do him the courtesy of not calling him out by name)  – and believe me he deserves mocking, he’s a fucking imbecile – telling me that the mean words I’d typed in an obscure corner of the internets had kept him awake all night tossing and turning with heart palpitations because I was such a brute, wah wah wah. What a little bitch, ammirite? Various other emails followed, as did I’m informed by some of my many moles and fans various responses to posts then weeks old in those very same obscure interweb corners. At least one guy went so far as to call my house, which I would have picked up if I was here because he’s a good guy, but still, people are calling my house. I got an email yesterday for fuck sake. Please stop it. I don’t want to be pen pals. In my entire adult life I’ve had two friends, one of whom’s dead and the other of whom I can’t stand. Please leave me alone. Except AH of the tribe, he can call whenever he likes.

The other thing I noticed other than that I live in a lot of people’s heads was that I didn’t give a shit one way or another whether St John’s won or lost. It occurred to me that: I just don’t care anymore. I don’t care if they win, I don’t care if they lose; I don’t care if they make the tournament; I don’t care if Lebron James has some eligibility left and he and Russell Westbrook decide to come to Queens to play for Coach Iron Mike Anderson. I just don’t care.

And so I resolved to stop. Which I did, cold turnkey. I haven’t watched a second of a St John’s game since January and I don’t miss it a whit. I have not posted on a fan forum. (I’ll cop to poking my head in a couple of them when St John’s got ignominiously bounced from the BET by Seton Hall but even the wailing and gnashing of teeth didn’t bring me pleasure.) The fact is that I don’t miss any of it, not any of it at all. I don’t even miss calling people cunts and giving them heart palpitations and sleepless night. I don’t miss any of it.

So unless things change, you’ve heard the last of me. (Danger, You Haven’t Seen The Last Of Me! No, But The First Of You Turns My Stomach!) The domain registration for this blog expires in 29 days and I’ll probably not even renew it, despite the fact that when it disappears so will the archives of the finest sports writing New York has seen since Damon Runyon puked on Red Smith. If you’re interested in owning http://www.bigeastboards.com/, hit me up. The previous owner gave it away for free and I’d be happy to pay it forward. Just don’t call me, unless you’re a member of the tribe obviously.

***

One last thing. I’ve looked at the NCAA tournament pairings and see various outcomes that would give even the most stoic St John’s fan palpitations. I append them here.

Norm Roberts wins yet another national championship

Arkansas win a national championship

Georgetown win a national championship

Connecticut win a national championship

Syracuse win a national championship

LJ Figueroa wins a national championship

Rutgers makes the Sweet 16

Iona makes the Sweet 16

Mikey Dixon makes the Sweet 16

Porter Moser (aka Coach Second Choice) makes the Sweet 16

 

That’s a lot of bad outcomes. I wish as many of them as are mathematically possible on all of you.

So see you in the funny papers. And  speaking of hearts that can’t stand the strain, enjoy Chris Mullin’s  bestie’s wife,  Mrs. John McEnroe, she’s hot as fuck. Or at least she was. And still it remains, goodbye to you.

fascism, saint john's

System of a Down

1 Comment

 

 

I think it fair to say that as years go 2020 has been one for the dogs. It started here in the US with ridiculous impeachment theater, then careened into a hysterical reaction to a mundane virus – coof! coof! coof! – which reaction was designed to destroy this country’s economic and social fabric with the endgame of transferring enormous aggregates of wealth and power to the global elite, wandered through six months of riots that saw mostly peaceful fascists alternately burning down cities and building their own urban utopias, and ended with an election so obviously corrupt that even the people who engineered it can’t help but giggle when defending the outcome. Unless of course you’re such a rube that you believe that this guy


got 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’t know what to tell you.

The 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.

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’s basketball. Which past is increasingly murky and which future is, I think, none too bright either.

There’s 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 – I’ve followed the Detroit Lions for 30 odd years and she’s a former Jets season ticket holder – but other than those two moribund [sic] franchises you’d be hard pressed to argue that the Saint John’s 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.

(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’s last real and almost only success was in 2008, when he made the Elite Eight at Missouri. Since then he’s not made it past the round of 32 in 12 years.

What strikes me about Anderson’s fidelity to his alleged discovery is that it suggests an extreme sense of self-regard: he seems to think that he’s figured out something about basketball that the greatest minds in the game – and obviously that’s a relative thing, as most good basketball coaches are vaguely retarded and most great ones are autistic – have to the extent that they considered it found it wanting. Other than Nolan Richardson – who coached during the administration of Bush the Elder – 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 – 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’s never had a losing season. Which is where the comparison between Anderson and Izzo and Few ends.

(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’t prepared for it adequately. The bad news for Anderson is that there’s 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’s worked out: SJ was five and 13 in conference last year and this year they’re 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.

If you need further evidence of Coach Third Choice’s (©) 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 – so much for 10-deep 40 minutes of hell – only Greg Williams – arguably the team’s 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’s almost as if Iron Mike would rather lose with his own players than win with someone else’s. Which this year is almost the only thing he’s doing an adequate job of. Unless he’s already coaching for 2022, in which case make sure you renew your season tickets early, because wait until next year bums.

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’s on the sort of normal trajectory for improvement that one would expect in a four star recruit – who’s improved? Last year Heron and Figueroa – SJ’s 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 – 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’ll 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’s regressed, as have Caraher and Roberts to the extent that they’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate that they’re getting worse by the minute. Exit question: who’s Anderson and his crack staff developed? Exit answer: no one.

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’s 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 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’re likely to remain so. And the moral is: it’s still early and it’s 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.

We have to thank for Coach Third Choice shovel-faced Athletic Director Mike Cragg. Or more properly Jeff Capel – a wunderkind 30 and 36 in his first two years at Pitt – who Cragg called for advice after his first two head coaching choices – former dookie Bobby Hurley and a midwest mediocrity called Porter Moser – 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’s qua Saint John’s or for Capel’s NYC recruiting prospects is anyone’s guess. Having been so advised, Cragg pounced. That that pounce saved Saint John’s from head coach James Jones is cold porridge.

Naturally the dumb as fence posters over at redman dot com are enamored of Cragg, on the grounds that by hiring him Saint John’s 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’s entire professional success is based upon his ability to parrot “Yes Coach Screwshrenski, of course Coach Schewshevsky, whatever you say Coach Kruszevsky.” Because having stepped into a dynasty at dewk Cragg’s signature accomplishment was not fucking it up by having anything approaching an original thought, which is why it’s 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.

So that’s that. I wish there was some good news, but there isn’t. Because for Saint John’s fans the new normal is the recent past.

So to recap:

You will wear the mask.
You will live in the pod.
You will take the vaccine.
You will not fuck.
You will denounce your neighbors.
You will eat the bugs.  Oh yes, you will eat the bugs and thank you sir may I have another.

And most importantly: you will root for losers. Because the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Ho ho ho.

* * * *

Tonight is Saint Sylvester’s Day, or as you heathens call it, New Year’s 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’s terribly butch and not at all a tortured closeted homosexual. Needless to say I’ll be fucking off to bed early, because I don’t 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’s 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:

redmen dot com, saint john's

Sharif Don’t Like It

2 Comments

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.

brown, saint john's

Fade to Brown

1 Comment

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

2 Comments

 

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

1 Comment

(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

Leave a comment

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

1 Comment

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.