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.