I watched yesterday for the first time in a long time nearly a whole St. John’s game, which, predictably, St. John’s lost. (I say predictably because they stink.) In the old days I’d have probably been disappointed in the result and to alleviate my funk written a bit of a gambol about the free throw discrepancy and then spent an enjoyable 20 minutes looking for just the right bit of cheesecake with which to festoon it. These days though I actively root for St. John’s to lose and so was delighted, both in the outcome and also in the fan base’s reaction to it, because the tears of St. John’s fans are to me Veuve Clicquot.

I don’t have much to say about the game itself: Anderson is a lackadaisical recruiter with a one trick pony fugazi system designed to not bring out the best in his better players and St. John’s will flirt with mediocrity until he’s ridden out of town on a rail. As such, the details of it don’t matter much at all, except to the purists among you. And anyway I’m only writing this to get the the important stuff at the end. Feel free to skip ahead. But first a couple of observations.

* Does Coach Third Choice ever take the blame for anything? When he’s wins it’s a credit to his system and when he loses it’s always someone else’s fault. Yesterday someone else was once again the referees: “The thing I was really disappointed in was the free-throw discrepancy, that was awful … They made 26 out of 30 free throws, we made eight out of 17. That’s a big difference in the game.” Because that’s how classy individuals like Iron Mike respond to adversity: they point the finger at someone else. Perhaps he thinks that an undisciplined team that presses full court on one end and chucks up random threes (4-22 yesterday) on the other is going to shoot a lot of FT’s? Where’s this guy think he is, dook?

* Some fans are asking what happened to Stef Smith, who many had penciled in as a third team all BE player. What happened to Smith is that after averaging 13 points a game over his career at mighty Vermont he decided to test his mettle against stronger competition in the Big East and his mettle was found wanting. Expecting Smith to average 15 ppg in the BE is like expecting a guy who hits .280 in double A ball to hit .310 in the majors. What happened to him is: he’s not that good. Unfortunately for SJU fans not that good is good enough if you have Coach Home Run’s faith in his genious system. Which let’s face it has only worked a handful of times since the Reagan administration and when it worked for Nolan Richardson his 40 minutes of hell featured Scotty Thurmond and Corliss Williamson, whereas Anderson’s version features Montez Mathis and O’Mar Stanley. 

* Finally, congratulations to Ed Cooley’s diseased head on his 300th victory. Congratulations are also in order because Cooley’s no longer the most hideous coach in the Big East, that honor having devolved to Tony Stubblefield. Jesus I saw that guy for the first time the other day, he’s a fucking gargoyle.

And now the important bit.

There was a thread this week over at Redman dot com – home of the worst most ignorant basketball fans on the internet – asking about the continuing viability of another Saint John’s fan site, this one called Johnny Jungle. (Which yes, Johnny Jungle is a completely stupid name). The thread devolved as threads at RDC often do into shout-outs of increasingly desperate and obscure references. Like if there’s a thread at RDC called “SJU Top 5 Bigs” the list will start out reasonably enough with Zendon Hamilton and Bill Wennington, and then someone will say hey you left off LeRoy Ellis or George Johnson or Mel Davis or whoever, fair enough, but by the third page some dummy will drag poor Rudy Wright or Ed Searcy into it and another dope’ll chime in with don’t forget Paul Berwanger until finally some drooling geriatric mentions a random golem like Archie Oldham and the whole thread collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

So it was with “Johnny Jungle.” After the introductory whatever-happened-to-JJ talk, the conversation turned quickly to me (a sporadic JJ poster), I being a legend still spoken of reverently at RDC despite the fact that I stopped posting there when Lavin was coach. One poster said gee I miss fun and a conga line of others chimed in

his posts were hysterical.

I miss Fun the most

One of a kind and hysterical … I wish he’d come back.

He’s still twisted and witty.

Which this last one I don’t know how I feel about the word “witty,” it’s kind of ghey. Oscar Wilde was twisted and witty. I’m fucking hilarious.

So anyway the JJ thread devolved into whatever happened to this or that guy of ever increasing tangent until someone called Monty (not his real name) said hey does anyone remember a person screen-named CRGreen. Now, CRGreen was a UCLA alumni who migrated to the #SJUBB boards in the early teens after Lavin got hired: he was a deluxe fanboi. I didn’t put much credence in CRGreen’s opinion and we clashed often – despite all available evidence he maintained that Steve Lavin was a competent basketball coach, of which opinion I was forced to repeatedly disabuse him – but the thing about CRGreen was that he was a walking CBB encyclopedia. He knew knew more about CBB than me, and I know more about CBB than any 10 of you combined. But this guy, he knew everything.

In 2013 it came to light that CRGreen was facing various health challenges: esophageal cancer — which is essentially a death sentence — and because he was a fat bastard tipping the scales at near 400 pounds, heart failure and diabetes. (Note to any fatsos reading: put the donuts down, you’re killing yourself.) Eventually CRGreen passed and was mourned.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130831034752/http://www.bruinzone.com/b12/messages/96749.shtml

And like Marlowe he’s been dead lo these many seven years.

All of which to get here:

In the JJ thread, what this Monty guy (again, not his real name) said was:

I did think that [CRGreen] was a plant by Lavin or a family member. The timing of his illness and alleged demise was awfully coincidental. If I remember correctly, it was right around the time that Lavin was, ah, terminated, that CR Green announced that he departure was imminent. Now, I do not mean to make light of the situation … [if he] was in fact terminally ill and about to meet his demise, but the whole story just smelled fishy to me.

Yes, we wouldn’t want to make light of someone choking on their own putrescent flesh while dying a slow agonizing death from throat cancer, we here at RDC are far to classy for that. It’s just that like Lazareth, CRGreen’s corpse stinketh of fish (John 11:39). (Ed. note: if someone from RDC uses the word “classy” in your presence check to make sure you still have your wallet. And both your kidneys.)

Leave aside the to-the-best-of-my-recollection factual inaccuracies and consider the tacit premise: Steve Lavin, a recent cancer survivor suffering from an acute case of narcissistic personality disorder, in the midst of being exposed as a coaching fraud whilst simultaneously being cuckolded by his famous actress wife because his once proud Irish penis refuses to stand at attention and perform its husbandly duty, that guy’s sending spies to an obscure corner of the internet to refute the opinions of 30 or so active RDC posters, most of whom can’t read and those that can can’t figure out the forum’s quote function and all of them basketball ignoramuses nearly to a man. That seems an unlikely course of events to me. A more likely scenario is that Steve Lavin’s never heard of you and if he had wouldn’t piss on you if you were burning even if he still had control of his bladder, which seems dodgy.

And for those reasons I correct the record.

The Roanoke Times (Virginia)

December 1, 2013 Sunday

Metro Edition

Craig Green, of Blacksburg, died on August 26, 2013, from medical complications following a long period of illness and declining health. He was 59 years old. In his last years he put up a hard battle against three serious diseases: esophageal cancer, heart failure, and diabetes.

Craig was born in Glendale, Calif., and grew up in nearby West Covina, where he graduated from Edgewood High School. He studied at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif. His life’s work was in the field of computer technology. His early career in the 1970s began as an employee of Wang Laboratories followed by employment as a computer specialist in the banking industry. He formed his own computer consulting company in the early 1980s. In 1993 he founded the company VCS Computers which he moved from Indiana to Blacksburg, Va, in 1995. He was President of VCS Computers from its inception to the time of his death. VCS built, sold, maintained and serviced computers for the local community and members of many incoming classes of Virginia Tech students. He was an ardent follower of his beloved UCLA Basketball Bruins and became an enthusiastic fan of Virginia Tech sports after his move to Blacksburg. He loved to sing and had a lifelong passion for playing the guitar. Craig was a fine and decent human being who enjoyed the loyalty and admiration of his friends. He is much missed.

He is survived by his mother, Nellie Thurman of West Covina, Calif.; his brother, Glenn (wife Karen); and step-nieces and nephews.

Requiescat in pace CRGreen and condolences to his mother Nellie. It’s always sad when a parent outlives their child. Unless Lavin planted the obituary as part of a diabolical plan to outwit Monty obviously, in which case fuck her.