Tag Archives: snowflakes

saint john's

If You Rebuild It, They Will Dumb

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You idiots have loaded up a hair-trigger double-barreled shit machine gun and the barrel’s pointed right at your own heads. – Jim Lahey

I’d say you can’t go home again but that’d be hacky. How hacky? So hacky that it was the theme of a column written by Mike Vaccaro, which note to Mike: as hard as you try to be a bad writer you will never be the worst writer at the NY Post while Steve Serby still has a functioning liver.

Not surprisingly – him being a dunce – Vaccaro misunderstands the meaning of Wolfe’s epigram. It doesn’t mean merely that you can’t return from whence you came. That would be stupid, because lots of people leave a place and return to it with no great loss or effect. What the saying means is that from whence you came becomes different because you left it and becomes differenter still when you return: you can’t go home again because when you leave home there is no home qua home left. And that is not the moral of the Mullin saga and even if it were that’d be the wrong moral anyway.

So yes anyway Chris Mullin has resigned as head coach of St John’s after four short years, after being given a vote of no confidence by AD Mike Cragg. The story is that Cragg refused to extend Mullin’s contract, making him essentially a lame duck and that Mullin refused to be a lame duck. So Mullin will take his four million dollars and go home, and good for him: the lawyer in me – and as I learned recently via 23 and me the Ashkenazi – says he earned every penny.

The news of Mullin’s departure led to great glee among the worst fan base in the world, or at least the vociferous part of which posts on line: at redmen dot com – a steaming fetid cesspool where a dozen bitter zealous imbeciles – like this moron, an Uber driver who lives in his mother’s basement, which would be cliché if not true

– repeat the same shopworn twaddle half a dozen times a day without a scintilla of wit or insight – and johnnie jungle – a sort of redmen dot com for the short bus riders – and on Twitter at #sjubb – which while also a fetid swamp of stupid at least displays a modicum of a sense of humor. The glee is not surprising: besides being the worst fan base in all of sports St John’s fans comprise in the main St John’s graduates, meaning that they were poorly educated and not too bright to begin with. Which in turn means that their take is apt to be wrong and spectacularly so. What was surprising to me was the animus displayed against arguably the greatest player in the program’s history who led St John’s to one of its few triumphs in the modern era. But as Hitler said to Stalin on the eve of Operation Barbarossa: what have you done for me lately.

At this point I’m so cynical that I no longer trust my own skepticism but frankly I was a bit taken aback. Not by the recent graduates certainly. Besides having no connection to Mullin the player millennials comprise the stupidest generation to walk the planet since cro-magnon struggled to two feet and have been since birth swaddled in confident estimation of their own self-regard. You’d think that they of all people would have awarded Mullin a participation trophy just for trying to coach. But no: their charity extending only to themselves they do not understand why they cannot win now; after all they deserve it. But I was surprised a bit by the reaction of the red and white club crew: all of them former division one athletes and CYO coaches and basketball savants and multi-millionaire donors with sources inside the program who pal around with NBA scouts and Big East VIPs whose shifting avatars and veiled allusions comprise vague hints about vague rumors, lest they burn their important sources; they are not at all twice divorced desperate for attention low self-esteem drama queens who own several cats: they are important people with important opinions deserving of respect. These people I thought might give the great Chris Mullin the benefit of the doubt. But no. They had their knives out too. Dull as their knives are.

So Chris Mullin is gone. Frankly that makes me sad; I had high hopes. That said he marks the fourth of the last five St John’s coaches to be fired after winning 20 game and making the NCAA tournament. Fran was fired after going 22-10; Jarvis was 21-13 the year before he was let go; stupid Steve Lavin was 21-12; and Mullin 21-13: the combined record of those four coaches is carry the one 85-48. The only coach not to be fired at St John’s since the last century was good old Norm Roberts, who had the good sense never to make the post season; no doubt the same fate would have awaited him had he. Even at UCLA do they wait until their coach doesn’t make the tournament to fire him but here at St John’s we act preemptively, because if the 30 years since Lou retired has taught us anything it’s that changing coaches every five years is a recipe for success. And so we face another another five years of torment by the basketball gods. Which maybe we probably deserve.

Not that Mullin was particularly a good coach. He wasn’t. I’m not talking about the optics that the morons talk about: where he sat and when he tied his shoes and how much water he drank when. Those things are McGuffins that mesmerize the rubes. I mean that his system was not designed to optimize the talents of his players, who weren’t good enough to play ball the way he thought it should be played. On the other hand the talent he brought in was about as impressive as any that had been brought in since hapless Brian Mahoney and but for a couple of key defections – Lovett last year and Owens this – and a couple of shit the bed performances by Heron and Clarke in this year’s tournament, things might have been different. But then if pigs had wings they’d be my uncle.

***

When Mike Cragg was introduced as St John’s new Athletic Director he talked a great deal about the importance of family, both his existing family and his new one. I thought – mistakenly it turns out – that he was talking about his new St John’s family, you know, the family that sprung from the loins of Buck Freeman and spawned Joe Lapchick who in turn begat Louie and Mully and Walter and Malik and so on. Turn outs – if the rumor is true that the mediocrity that is Bobby Hurley is going to be the next St John’s coach and if not him Chris Collins or the appalling John Scheyer – Cragg was talking about his dook family. Because evidently Cragg is trying to recreate dook in Jamaica. If I were a teen age girl I’d type here LOL and festoon it with emojis. I think what Cragg doesn’t understand  – which is understandable considering the cocoon he’s lived in for the last 30 years – is that dookies are not successful merely because they’re dukies. And in fact most dukies (other than Mike Brey) are spectacular failures: Shewrkinski’s coaching tree comprises mediocrities like Collins, Tommy Amaker, the disgraced Quin Snyder, floor slapping dope Steve Wojowitski

and  serial cheater Jeff Capel; and his players comprise a conga line of failures so spectacular that it defies description: Chris Duhon, Josh McRoberts, Chris Carrawell, various and sundry Plumlees, Jason “look out for that tree” Williams, Shane Battier’s furrowed head, Trajan Langdon, Jahlil Okafor, Austin Rivers, Cherokee Parks, Shav Randolph, Brian Zoubek; more dook graduates have had life threatening drunken driving accidents than have had successful NBA careers. The most successful duke player in modern NBA history was made of tissue paper and after him comes who? Probably this guy, former poet laureate James JJ Reddick.

who penned these immortal lines, once the subject of an unctuous ESPN special

No bandage can cover my scars
It’s hard living a life behind invisible bars
Searching for the face of God
I’m only inspired by the poems of Nas

Facing the forecast of fears
that none of my peers
have ever been faced with
I wanna reach the top floor
but I’m stuck in the basement
With not enough juice 
to burst through the chains
that have shackled my brain

 

As Oscar Wilde said of The Olde Curiosity Shop: “One must have a heart of stone to read of the death of little Nell without dissolving into tears of laughter.”

What Cragg doesn’t understand is that dook succeeds for one reason: that Mike Schrewshenki sold his soul to the devil is a diabolical genius who every year takes a group of slow unathletic pasty faced ballerinas and molds them to his indomitable will and who with the aid of a corrupt college basketball hierarchy peopled by repulsive sycophants and lickspittles like Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas – and the coven of dook alumni who comprise college basketball’s lead analysts: Quinn Snyder, Mike Gminksi, Bucky Waters, the drunkard Bob Wentzel, Jim Spanarkle, Alaa Abdulwhaterver – are presented as the paragon of white privilege virtue and sportsmanship. I suspect that Cragg is in for a rude awakening when he discovers what goes on outside the protective bubble wrap that ESPN affords his former employer. Because Bobby Hurley, well he doesn’t stink, but he’s nothing to write home about: he’s given credit for rehabilitating U Buffalo, but that distinction falls to Reggie Witherspoon, who inherited a five win team on NCAA probation, won 20 games four times in his ten year tenure after that and bequeathed Hurley a team laden with upperclassmen; and at ASU in four years after inheriting a respectable program from Herb Sendek has done nothing of distinction. Prediction: if he comes to Jamaica Hurley will fail in Jamaica, as every coach post Louie has failed in Jamaica, because Jamaica is where coaching careers come to die. And Cragg will follow him out, rodent tail between legs.

Finally a word about Rick Pitino, about whom the great unwashed have been tweeting and posting lo these last several days. Bring in Rick Pitino they say, returneth the prodigal son to returneth St John’s to its former glory, such as it was, what a story of redemption they say for a great Catholic institution. Frankly I don’t see it happening. If the stories are true St John’s wouldn’t let Mullin hire poor Mike Rice and all he did was assault some players and call them sissies. Whereas Pitino fornicated publicly and thereafter ran a brothel: that’s like seven mortal sins and various cardinal and for which he has not repented: he recently demanded as a prerequisite for gracing St John’s with His presence apologies from various government agencies who had dared challenge his ethics and morality; how dare they! Not even as corrupt an organization as the Catholic Church can put up with that sort of hypocrisy.  Obviously it will be a great disappointment to Rick Pitino should he not be offered the job, but on the bright side if Rick Pitino can get through 9/11 he can get through anything. I just don’t see it happening. But on the other hand, it’s the only positive outcome. Do you fire the great Chris Mullin to hire Kevin Tim Cluess? Steve Pikiell? Geno Ford? If that’s the case they should have given Steve Lavin a lifetime contract. And Steve Lavin is a horrible coach and even a worse person. If you don’t believe me ask Rysheed Jordan. Not right now, he’s presently being sodomized in the prison shower. But  later, through the glass.

saint john's, seton hall

Blimey

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RECAP: Steve Lavin was such an atrocious coach that every once in a while you still catch a whiff of the stench of his failure. Sunday afternoon that smell took the form of three Seton Hall upperclassmen who Lavin couldn’t be bothered recruiting because he was too busy being played for a fool by Isaiahs Whitehead and Briscoe: Brooklyn’s Khadeen Carrington, Bennie Blanco Desi Rodriguez from the Bronx and Angelo Delgado – he’s not from anywhere, he has his own zip code – combined for 42 points, 24 rebounds and 12 assists in Seton Hall’s 86-73 defeat of Saint John’s in New Jersey. The final margin makes it seem like it might have been a game: for those of you who were lucky enough to have missed it, it wasn’t. Seton Hall went up early and stayed there and made Saint John’s look foolish in the process. To the extent that there was a bright side and there wasn’t much of one it’s that once Seton Hall punched their teeth in Saint John’s didn’t curl up in a ball and allow Seton Hall to kick them in the head and stomach until their legs got tired, which is what happened a couple of weeks ago versus Georgetown. Instead, Saint John’s got to its feet and threw a few feeble punches, which, okay they didn’t land, but at least they didn’t stay down. That’s progress. The fact is that they were just out talented and especially out muscled and there’s nothing to be done about that, at least not this year, when some nights the only lesson they’ll learn is how to take their beatings like men … Once again the graphic shows exactly what went on, saving me the trouble of describing it and you the trouble of reading about it

If you were to look only at the Saint John’s side of the box score things don’t seem too bad: 40 percent from the floor, 30 percent from three, 33 rebounds, 10 assists, only nine turnovers, that isn’t awful. But compared to Seton Hall’s numbers – 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from three, and 20 assists on 32 made baskets and 45 rebounds (+ 12) – they are. If like me you’re no great fan of the Pirates and their rat faced coach Kevin Willard you’ll be pleased to note that they shot 14 of 25 from the free throw line wherefrom they are now at 60 percent from the year, which poor shooting will hopefully bite them in the ass at some point, preferably in the Big East tournament. Colorman Len Elmore kept mentioning their tournament chances but he must have been reading last year’s game notes because this year their chances appear to be zero.

PLAYERS: Only two Saint John’s players bothered to show up, Marcus Lovett, who had an acrobatic 22 points and Bashir Ahmed, a bust who finished with 19 points and 7 rebounds, including a four-point play early. Get him out of there!! … Shamorie Ponds was 3 for 11 from the field and is 15 of 45 from the floor over his last four games. Knowledgeable Saint John’s fans who’ve scoured his Snaptagram account claim that his recent run of poor play has led him to consider transferring, which if these gossipy old biddies are to be believed makes him about the ninth player who’ll leave the program at season’s end. Personally I don’t follow any pubescent boys social media accounts (except for Harry Styles obviously, he’s dreamy) so I can’t confirm …. Those thuds you heard yesterday afternoon were the bodies of people hurling themselves off the Malik Ellison bandwagon , which they had jumped on after his 20 point performance against DePaul. On the bright side yesterday neither Rich Ackerman nor Len Elmore mentioned his parentage, which is the first time that’s happened in a year and a half … Together Saint John’s front line of Yawke, Owens, Williams and Alibegowtch had 14 points and 9 rebounds. Whereas SH’s front line of Angelo Delgado had 21 points and 20 rebounds …. Missini’s only points came on one of his heroic dagger threes late in the second half that pulled Saint John’s with 17. Unfortunately his teammates were unable to capitalize on the huge swing in momentum and the lead soon drifted back up to 18.

NOTES: I’d be remiss if I failed to mention this week’s big event: Spice Girl Geri Halliwell had her second child, a girl. Just kidding, it was a boy. No, just kidding again. Of course I’m talking about the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a Trump supporter – I’m more of a set the whole thing on fire and sit across the street drinking a six pack watching it burn supporter – I certainly understand the anyone other than who’s there now impulse that got him elected: having been bequeathed a republic we are now subjects of an corrupt oligarchy; once free citizens the minutia of our lives – from what kind of light bulbs we use to what sort of toilet we shit in – is controlled by a cadre of unelected clerks and bureaucrats whose seeming sole goal in life is to maintain their ravenous suckling at the public teat. In more civilized times these sort of people had their heads guillotined and mounted on stakes as a warning to other would-be tyrants, but these times are far from civilized. So I’ll take what I can get, especially if it includes a thumb jabbed deep in the eye of my alleged masters and betters. As fat slob Michael Moore said, this was the greatest fuck you in the history of fuck yous, and it was to aficionados of fuck yous as satisfying as Michael Moore finds his third breakfast.

Odds are that Trump is not the answer to the restoration of the republic – why should he succeed where Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams failed? And besides, the problem with political nihilism – besides that it postulates that there are no right questions, much less answers – is that nature abhors a vacuum, which means that every time you throw the bums out another crew of bums appears to take their place; history, his and ours, suggests that he will turn out to be just that. But so far he says the right things: that you and I are free citizens of the greatest and richest country in the history of mankind; that our liberties are under assault by fascists in the name of the greater good; that US blood and treasure should be expended to enable US citizens to pursue life, liberty, and property; and that the ideas underlying the expansion of liberty should rule the body politic.

Do I believe all that? Fuck yeah. Do I believe that he believes it? Fuck no. Probably he doesn’t believe in anything, other than his own vanities – he’s a child of privilege who parlayed his gifts into a career as a vapid celebrity. It’s fair to say that he is a shallow man. But also to be fair probably no more shallow than any other man who sought to be the most powerful man in the world: Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, these are not well adjusted individuals. And unlike that crew Trump is not a sociopath: he’s a game show host. Which is why I don’t share the phantasmagorical fears of the left, who after two months of ameliorating their disappointment with coloring books and stuffed animals emerged briefly from beneath their couches to throw a public temper tantrum in our nation’s capital where, dressed up in Halloween costumes and led by downtrodden dissidents like Katie Perry and Madonna Ciccone they spoke truth to power by setting fire to park benches and limousines. Well, they needn’t have bothered. Donald Trump is as likely to rob you of your civil liberties as Wink Martindale is to kidnap your children and chain them up in the basement as his personal sex slaves.

It goes without saying that as a libertarian I’m delighted to see the hind quarters of President Jugears and his cadre of Stalinist cronies: they have done incalculable damage to the republic and to our rights and liberties. I wish I could say that we’ve seen the last of him in public life, but his type never go away: they too much crave the spotlight. I cannot for the life of me fathom why someone with so much contempt for a nation and its citizens would want to govern them, much less bask in their adulation, but it seems his life blood. Which is something I’ve noticed about democratic presidents: they never go away. Jimmy Carter’s still plaguing us, and the satyr Bill Clinton – odd how the Clinton crime family foundation shut its doors just this week on the heels of Hillary’s defeat isn’t it, move along, nothing here to see – and Obama has already announced his plans to spend his retirement hectoring us for our unamerican behavior, presumably between rounds of golf and writing his third autobiography – Winston Churchill and Otto Von Bismarck got by with one – and vacuuming in huge sums of corporate cash. Whereas Reagan disappeared to his ranch with Nancy, and George Bush the younger retired graciously, and Bush senior you only heard from once a year when he jumped out of an airplane on his birthday. I think it’s because republican presidents had lives before politics that they went back to, whereas for democrats politics is the only life they know. They’re like those strip mall stores that are always having going out of business sales but never actually do. Well, for this week at least, everything that must go did.

Northridge, saint john's

Ain’t No cSunshine

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a5fe7d31d307c3a5eeb41d82625e083d_h

RECAP: Despite the absence of starting point guard Marcus Lovett Saint John’s defeated Cal State Northridge 76-70 at Carnesecca Arena Monday night. With Lovett it’s a game you’d expect SJU to win – I’ve never heard of CSUN before but you have to figure that they didn’t schedule them in the preseason on campus if they were a powerhouse like, say, Delaware State. When I found out he wasn’t playing I said aloud “well they’re never going to win this,” which it turns out is one of those rare times I didn’t know what I was talking about. Because win they did and pretty easily, despite a scare in the second half when a relatively stable eight point lead evaporated and SJU found themselves down 62-61 with six minutes remaining. At which point they could have rolled over and no one but haters and Iona fans would have faulted them for it, missing as they were their most important if not their best player. Instead they grinded out the victory, just as Chris Mullin exhorted them to during a late televised timeout. That’s all coaching baby …. Statistically SJU was creditable: they shot close to 50 percent from the floor and from three, were plus five rebounds, and had an equal number of assists and turnovers. CSUN on the other hand was pretty atrocious: they were 2 for 14 from three and turned the ball over 17 times. What kept them in it was two things: free throws and Saint John’s really appalling defense, which allowed their opponent to get to the rim at will. I’ve faced stiffer resistance in a Bangkok brothel … Speaking of the officials, they were horrible, led by Brian O’Connell, who’s proof of the old adage I just made up that says never trust a man who spends more time doing his hair than his wife. And by that I don’t mean doing his wife, although I’m guessing BOC spends more time on his hair than on that as well. Forty three fouls in 40 minutes is carry the one more than a foul a minute, which is just too much and the first time it’s been called that way all year … Unless Mullin has a bunch of blue pinstripes in his locker he looked to be wearing the same suit he wore on Monday although to his credit he changed his shirt. Hopefully this does not devolve into a lucky sweater situation …. At 4 and 5 SJU is just about where you’d think they should be in early December. Best case scenario is they stole a game in the Bahamas and Delaware State obviously but they’d still be .500 plus or minus one. They better do something about the defense though because otherwise they’re going to get chewed up in conference play.

PLAYERS: A hack writer would say that Shamorie Ponds had a coming out party last night. I’m not going to say that, although he was pretty spectacular – 25 points, five assists, and only one turnover. The one sour note was an ill-advised blown dunk that might have gotten him on ESPN and instead was just a miss. On the bright side I don’t remember a true freshman playing like this for a long time. Omar Cook maybe …. Ahmed was 2-9 from the floor but 8-12 from the FT line. He finished with a near double double, 13 and 8, which is a nice line, although the five turnovers are a problem . He’s averaging 12 and 6 for the season, which led one astute observer to question whether his play thus far has been “detrimental” to the team. I’d point out to that genyious that David Russell averaged 15 and 7 as a senior, whereas Ahmed is seven games into his career …. Those boings you heard when Rico Mussini scored 9 points in a single minute in the first half were some of the first erections to emanate from the Red and White Club since Jimmy Carter was president. Unfortunately like the Red and Whites Mussini was flaccid the rest of he game – he scored 3 points in the other 39 minutes and turned the ball over four times … Signs of life from Yassoum Yawke, who had six points, five rebounds and two blocks in 18 minutes … Another creditable effort from Owens – five points, seven rebounds, four blocks. Is he the new Costco? In one remarkable sequence he stole the ball in the back court, flushed a dunk on the ensuing break and then took a charge on the next defensive possession. It was an impressive 45 seconds. Unfortunately he’s being asked to play 28 minutes …. Speaking of unfortunate, Malik Ellison played 29 minutes in Lovett’s absence, the upshot of which is let’s hope Marcus gets back on the court real soon. Ellison’s best play of the evening was faking out whoever was screaming by double pumping a free throw …. Sima played 17 minutes, most of them pointless … Alibeowitch beat his personal best by fouling out in 13 minutes … Freudenberg played only 10 minutes, it just seemed longer

NOTES: California State University Northridge, aka CSUN, are the Matadors, coached by Reggie Theus. Theus was an all American at UNLV, a top 10 draft pick, and is the only player in NBA history to be top 50 all time in scoring and top 25 all time in assists (he averaged 19 points and six assists over 14 years in the league) who is not in the hall of fame. The only other shooting guard to meet those criteria is Jerry West, who got in on the first ballot. To put that in perspective there’s someone called Hortencia Marcari in the hall of fame who played for Brazil in the Pan American Games a couple of times; Mendy Rudolf and Earl Strom are in there and they’re referees – that’s like giving an Oscar to the guy who catered Citizen Kane; and Senda Abbott, who coached women’s basketball in the 19th century at a time when women were not permitted to dribble or steal the ball from their opponents, she’s in the hall of fame. Reggie Theus and his 20 ppg average playing the actual game of basketball, he’s on the outside looking in. Theus was a successful coach in his first go round at New Mexico State (despite the canard that successful players cannot make successful coaches) although not so much in the NBA where he coached for a couple of years or as yet at CSUN …. I find the Matadors an odd choice for a team name in these times and especially in California, the snowflake capital of the world. In the first place, you have a bunch of privileged white California residents usurping the cultural heritage of a poor Latino fighting to death a ferocious bull and in the second place you have a guy who stabs a poor defenseless bull to death for sport. Where’s PETA? Where’s LA RAZA? Where’s the outrage and solidarity from my LGBGTEIEEO brothers and sisters? Hopefully after they’ve coloring booked away their disappointment over the recent election they’ll get on this important issue …. Although only founded recently in 1952 CSUN has a lengthy list of notorious alumni, albeit many of them are vapid television personalities: Paula Abdul, Richard Dreyfuss, Jenna Elfman, Teri Garr, Phil Hartman, Helen Hunt, Evas Longoria and Mendes, Mouskateer drummer Cubby O’Brien, Eve “Jan” Plumb, and Debra Winger. Others include former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi; former Hawaii governor Linda Lingle; Doors drummer John Densmore and Police drummer Andy Summers; and the wonderful bassist Leland Sklar, whose career ran from the ridiculous – he played with such bubble gum acts such as Air Supply, David Cassidy, Peter Allen Jackson Browne, the Eagles and Neil Sedaka – to the sublime: he’s recorded with Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Warren Zevon, Billy Cobham Lee Ritenour and tenor alto (I never get tired of that one) saxophonist David Sanborn … Which brings us finally to CSUN graduate Lyman Bostock, an outfielder who hit .311 in four years in MLB in the 70’s before being murdered – mistakenly it turns out – by a jealous husband. His killer pled guilty by reason of insanity and having been adjudged sane seven months later was released to die peacefully in his sleep 35 years later. Who was is that said that justice is blind and juries stupid? Someone. Anyway, Bostock’s wiki page links to a page that lists MLB players who died during their careers. I was struck in perusing it how much things have changed in the 100 short years since the century turned. Most of the players listed as dying in the early part of the century passed from now defunct diseases – typhoid, typhus, influenza, tuberculosis – and from pathologies that tend to effect the lower classes – murder, suicide, cirrhosis. Whereas nowadays you have well to do healthy players dying accidental deaths, like Danny Frisella flipping his dune buggy and Thurman Munson flying his personal aircraft into a cornfield and Jose Fernandez drunk piloting his yacht into a dock. There’s a lesson here about something, civics maybe, or popular culture, but it’s too early in the morning for that. Here’s this instead

bethune-cooke, red storm, saint john's

Make Alibegovic Great Again

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trump

HERE WE GO AGAIN: An old saw says that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And so here are we Saint John’s fans once again in November thinking optimistic thoughts about the program and here am I once again to dissuade you from them. I frankly am not looking forward to my task this year. When I started writing these things it was out of a sense of frustration with the fate of the only sports team that I follow with any sort of passion and a loathing for its awful coach, the repulsive Steve Lavin. But now Lavin is gone lo these many years and with him the stench of failure and of his players only one remains and in the meantime the prodigal son has returned and the fatted calf is slain and the pieces are in place and things frankly are looking up – or as far up as things look in Jamaica anyway. And so what’s a boy to do? Sure I’m a cynic but not so far gone that I’m going to trash Chris Mullin and honestly even the skeptic in me believes that happy days will be here sooner rather than later. Where that leaves this experiment I am not sure and for the time being I’ll proceed in good faith but I suspect a time is coming when I’ll be happy enough to just watch the games and leave the commentary to the many genyiouses who so generously share their wisdom on various SJU forums … About what to expect this year I have not too much to say having only seen now 80 minutes of basketball, which is not enough for even the most astute observer to form an opinion. I will admit though that what little I’ve seen leaves me cautiously pessimistic: the newcomers look all of them like the real thing, the returnees look bigger and stronger, the staff looks energetic and engaged and the recruiting is better than it’s been forever. It’s probably too soon for any of that to translate to success on the court – college basketball being one of the few endeavors in life where age often trumps beauty – but it would be nice to see this year when all things shake out double the win total from last year (~16), a mid pack finish in the Big East, and an NIT bid, which is not an outlandish expectation considering that Chris Mullin is the coach and New York the television market. But as I say almost every year in November, wait till next year bums … About this game I have little to say as well: they ate the cupcake and although it was delicious there are no lessons in the empty calories. We’ll have a pretty good idea of how things are going to be by Thanksgiving, once Tom Izzo gets through with us … On my television last night Mullin’s hair was the same color as Frank Costanza’s. Hopefully that was an aberration and not a dye job

PLAYERS: Speaking of the real thing, Marcus Lovett did not start, despite being the best player on the court last night. Was it just one of those things or was Coach Lavin Mullin trying to teach his young point guard an important life lesson. I don’t know but if the latter get the orange jumpsuit ready … Federico Mussini had 20 points in 18 minutes, gladdening the hearts of racists everywhere. I’d remind those people that last year Mussini made 30 percent of his total threes (16 of 56) in November versus D2 competition, so I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. To be fair to FM he looks bigger and firmer and more athletic than he did last year, although I’ve seen fence posts that look more athletic than he did last year and he still this year can’t cover a pillar … Tariq Owens continues to impress although he’s going to have to manage more than four puny rebounds to make anyone forget Christian Jones, who had 13 last night versus real D1 competition … Shamorie Ponds led all players with 26 minutes and looked not much like a freshman doing so …. Bashmir Ahmed on the other hand played only 18 and looked to be pressing … At first thought I was disappointed that fun fave Kassoum Yawke only played 20 minutes and didn’t do much of anything with them but then I remembered just how young he is and what a luxury it is to be able to bring gifted players along slowly, rather than just throwing them to the dogs … Sima had 11 points in 15 minutes, confounding those who are already predicting his transfer … Like Mussini Malik Ellison looks bigger and stronger this year and seems poised to take a step forward … Richard Fredenburg will have to do better than zero points in 23 minutes if he expects me to learn how to spell his name …. Speaking of spelling, Alibegovic had a nice put back immediately upon entering the game and did a nice job of waving his towel thereafter. Anything they get from him beyond that will be a bonus … Darien Williams spent garbage time looking like someone whose had a bunch of surgeries and hasn’t played ball in a couple of years.

NOTES: Friday was Veteran’s Day, a public holiday intended to memorialize those who have served in their nations military, even, presumably, Germans. To those volk folk we offer a humble and heart felt thanks. Veteran’s Day falls on November 11 because the first world war – that’d be the war to end all wars for those scoring at home – ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1919, when the Huns surrendered to the Allies in a railway car in the North of France. (Ever the kidder Hitler had the French surrender in the very same railway car 30 years later.) In the United States the holiday was first promulgated by then President Woodrow Wilson, who besides being generally acknowledged as the first political “progressive” was the worst president of the 20th century and is on the short list for the worst president ever: an unrepentant racist, Wilson segregated the federal government, firing most black government employees – like most progressives he thought blacks “an ignorant and inferior race” – and consigned those who remained to colored bathrooms; in his memoirs he described the Ku Klux Klan as a “great” organization designed to “preserve the white race” and segregation as “a great benefit” to the negro; not content with that legacy he presided over the creation of the Federal Reserve system, instituted the first federal income tax, jailed his political enemies for treason and gleefully passed while as governor of New Jersey a bill requiring compulsory sterilization of felons, the mentally ill, and the differently abled. Add that all up and he makes Jimmy Carter look like Pericles … Speaking of politics, Theo R_______ (not his real name) writes:

Fun, could you share your thoughts on the recent election? As a millennial and a progressive I’m devastated and could use some solace.

Well sure Theo, I’d be delighted.

Louis Brandeis wrote that the right most cherished by civilized men is the right to be left alone. By that he meant that the essence of liberty is the right to opt out: from people, from relationships, from community, from ultimately from civilization. And so although I have firm opinions about the body politic – my belief that humanity is a dung heap and history the story of those who were ambitious enough to scale it has me positioned politically just to the right of Caligula – I’ve never voted. And this election was no different. Instead of participating I’ve endeavored to arrange my life so that it’s unaffected by the vagaries of government. I have no children and few attachments and enough money to tithe the state and afford my vices and since I’m interested in practically nothing other than my own comfort it doesn’t much matter which partisan hacks are ravening at the public teat at any given moment. All I want is to be left alone and for the most part I’ve achieved that.

Which is why I was pretty surprised late Tuesday evening when I realized how extremely unhappy I was going to be if Hillary Clinton were elected president. It wasn’t just the idea of living in a country governed by a cheap pant-suited grifter who’s spent her adult life feeding at the public trough in the name of public service. It wasn’t even that she’s married to a serial rapist and has a daughter that looks like Mister Ed. No. It was much more than that. Because by failing to elect Donald J. Trump president of the United States my fellow Americans would be squandering the opportunity to make so very many people so very fucking miserable and opportunities like that only come around a couple of times in a lifetime.

Mind you, I’m not talking about just the public mortification facing the likes of appalling no talent blowhards like Cher and Alec Baldwin, corpulent fuckhead Michael Moore, no talent whores Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, obese cum dumpsters Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer, rug munchers Rosie O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow, banana nosed bozo Barbra Streisand, ignorant fucking slut Madonna, and various smug and sanctimonious left wing stooges like Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sean Penn, Ed Asner, Jane Fonda, Woody Harrelson, Jessica Lange, Norman Lear, Martin Sheen, and Oliver Stone. And neither do I mean the disappointment felt by herds of coddled youth of the stupidest generation who flooded the internet with hilarious heart wrenching videos of their weeping disappointment before fleeing to safe spaces where they could share their feelings with grief counselors and assuage their disappointment with play doh and coloring books.

(Fans of irony will relish the fact that these ministrations to the feelings of the current generation of delicate snowflakes occurred on the eve of a holiday dedicated to remembering the bravery their great grandparents displayed storming the beaches of Normandy and will swoon with delight at the idea of millennial comparisons of the disappointment they experienced on 11-9 to real events that happened on 9-11.)

No: it was much bigger than all that.

See, it all came to me right about 2:00 AM, watching DemonRat toadies Wolf Blitzer and Van Jones frantically trying to parse their way to a Clinton win in the electoral college: I suddenly flashed on Hitler in his bunker pushing nonexistent Panzer divisions across a map of Eastern Europe. And it came to me that come morning whole continents would erupt in a glorious symphony of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth: dog faced PM Angela Merkel and her Germanic hordes; Canadian Prime Minster Zoolander and the myriad citizens of his third world hamster in a wheel socialist shit hole; entire nations of stinky cowardly frogs, murderous Huns and Cossacks, pathetic impotent Swedes and Sprouts, various rag and towel heads; and lest we forget those one billion inscrutable Orientals who’ve been buying up our country for the past 20 years, all of them singing in one voice: we are the world, we are the disconsolate, waa! Because there’s only one thing that’s sweeter than the feeling that comes from good things happening to me and that’s other people’s fucking misery. So take solace Theo: you might not feel so good but there are many many other people who feel worse, and that’s always cause for celebration. And if you worry about all the concentration camp fantasmagories that terrify you about the new president just remember that nothing that he could ever imagine doing will ever reach the depths plumbed by Woodrow Wilson and they’re still naming public buildings after that guy. So god bless America and god bless President Donald J. Trump. Schwing!