I get a lot of hate mail – shocking right? – but nothing I’ve written in recent memory generated more than the recap from last year’s away loss at Georgetown, aka the premonition game where Coach Kreskin started the walk-on. What was weird about that one was that the hate was generated not by something I wrote, but by something I didn’t, namely much of recap at all. I was so disgusted by Lavin’s antics and by the team’s performance that I wrote a couple of short shitty paragraphs and called it a morning. To the extent that it was meant as meta-commentary it fell flat and the vitriol came over the transom. Call it a lesson learned. Tuesday night’s 79-57 loss to Georgetown was eerily reminiscent of that game, down to the starting five, albeit this time the walk-on was more of a waddle-on. You might recall that Lavin credited last year’s game with turning the team’s fortune around – one thing he’s not shy about is taking credit when things go well – although he never quite explained why the lesson he allegedly taught the team on January 4th didn’t sink in until January 18th and why it took playing Dartmouth for them to learn it. If there’s anything to be learned from last night’s game I didn’t learn it and I suspect no one else did either. In the end this is one of those games where you shrug your shoulders and move on. They played poorly; nobody expected – or at least I didn’t – that they were going to go win one at Georgetown; and besides they were due a stinker, consistency not being their watchword. Assuming they shake it off it’s no big deal, except that the opportunities for a signature win are few and far between and this was one. Now there’s only Villanova. Because contrary to the belief of delusional SJ fans no one’s going to be impressed by home victories over Long Beach and Saint Mary’s on selection Sunday … Both teams came out flat and the first five minutes were as awful as we’ve seen all year. Georgetown eventually settled down and started to not stink. Saint John’s continued. Partly obviously that had to do with injuries – both Harrison and Obekpa are visibly hampered – which in turn means that Lavin has to manage his personnel, which anyone who’s seen Lavin coach knows that rotations aren’t his string suit, to the extent that he has a strong suit at all. He started shuffling players in and out randomly early and didn’t stop until he sent the walk-ons in with a minute left. I understand he needed to steal some minutes to rest the wounded, but in the first place most of the bench players bring nothing to the table – an early line change brought in Balamou, Branch, and Albawackovich in tandem, which good grief – and in the second the constant shuffling eliminates rhythm and cohesion. To the extent that this sort of experimenting is useful it should have taken place in November. To the extent that it represented strategy intended to win a basketball game it was laughable. I almost got the impression that Lavin conceded this one – that he was just going through the motions, discretion being the better part of valor. To the extent that this was that, it makes some sort of vague sense … So yeah where was I. The first 5 minutes GT was awful, then they weren’t. They closed the half out on an 18-4 run to take an 11 point halftime lead. They extended to 20 or so midway through the second and that was that. It was a pretty good beating and for a change SJU took it like men. That is, nobody punched anyone or elbowed anyone in the head or anything, so there’s that. As for GT they looked like the usual JT3 team, lots of talent and a gaudy record that will lead them to a high seed in the tournament from which they’ll likely get bounced the first weekend, as usual. As for SJU, it is a good thing Seton Hall is hurting as well.
PLAYERS: Pointer had 16 points and 8 rebounds and was about the only player who showed up. A lot of what he does he is able to do because he’s so much more athletic than the other players on the floor – as opposed to, you know, having skill at basketball – so GT is a bad match up for him … Just like in every other game in his cannot end soon enough career, Phil Greene demonstrated that he’s a volume scorer who’s lacking in both density and area. Eighteen points on 14 shots and once again brought nothing else to the table. Greene has now vaulted over Kyle Cuffe on the funlist of players whose graduation will most help the basketball program and is now nipping at Reggie Jessie’s heels … Harrison was oh for from the floor. Can’t remember when the last time that happened was and can’t be arsed to look. When he hurt his other calf it took him three or four games to get right. Hopefully it doesn’t take that long this time, because without him three or four games from now his teammates will have played themselves into the NIT … Obekpa spent a lot of time wincing on the court, but he’s such a drama queen that it’s impossible to know whether he’s really injured or whether that was to provide cover for the punking he got from Josh Smith. I am inclined to the uncharitable explanation … Jordan played only 26 minutes, which was weird considering how well he’s been playing. If he was being disciplined for a technical he took in the first half, that’s lame. If he was just sitting because Lavin thought running his bench out there gave him a better chance of winning, that’s even lamer … Speaking of lame, Jamal Branch played … Neither Joey DeLaRosa nor Albivickovich were able to stop GT inside and neither contributed much else. Balamou contributed nothing in 7 minutes. The rest of the scrubs and walk-ons got in, even David Lipscomb. They only one who didn’t was Henderson and it has to be that he’s a redshirt, because even Christian Jones got in and you can’t be buried farther down the bench than him.
NOTES: Not too many. Rafferty called the game, which is always entertaining. He did say though after one offensive possession that ended in a turnover that “Saint John’s wasn’t sure what they were running there,” which anyone who’s watched SJU for any appreciable length of time knows you could say about nearly every possession since 2012. Sidekick Gus Johnson noted that Georgetown players got a lot of trim at nearby Howard University, this evidently a tradition going back to John Thompson senior, who was the OG who first pimped them out. No wonder he out-recruited Louie, who had to rely on subway tokens and mustachioed Catholic girls … Yesterday was Shrovetide – Fat Tuesday to you heathens, aka Mardi Gras or Pancake Day if you’re Eurotrash – and today Ash Wednesday, the Imposition of the Ashes, which marks the beginning of Lent, the Christian period of atonement. Regular readers will no doubt here be expecting a digression about the origins of these rites – they are nearly all of them coopted pagan fertility rituals, as is most of the liturgical calendar – but I’m not really in the mood after last night’s debacle. Besides which I’d just end up needlessly insulting various people and their faith, which as a rule I don’t mind doing (unless they’re Muslims obviously, those people’ll will kill you) but it’d be bad form to do it today. Traditionally the Christian faithful mark the Lenten period by forgoing things they enjoy: by giving up luxuries, which is meant to emulate the deprivations suffered by the Baby Jesus during his 40 days sojourn in the desert. All of which is meant to cleanse the spirit leading up to the horrors of Good Friday afternoon and then the glory of Easter morning. This Ash Wednesday I’ll join the tradition by forgoing the having of sport at the expense of others, burlesque being the luxury of which I am fondest.