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By Sam, January 21, 2010 6:52 pm

#1 John Calipari

College basketball needs a great renegade to come along every so often to scare the shit out the blue bloods and cause a stir. John Thompson did that in the 80’s leading a Jesuit school with no football program or tradition to speak of, with a roster of scary good and fearless black players in a new conference to the very height of the national scene. In the later part of that decade and into the early 90’s Jerry Tarkanian took UNLV out of obscurity and into the national spotlight with Frank Sinatra and Bill Cosby sitting court side some nights. It was fun, it was unique, it was limited. During the 00’s John Calapari started a semi renegade empire in Memphis utilizing the most dangerous new tool available to him, the one and done. Cal used his connections to seedy middle men to get a steady flow of hot shot high school stars that never intended to stay long in the college game. His Memphis teams won big, beat big programs, and had NCAA tournament success. Cal built something at Memphis from the ground up that threatened the bigger, more established and likely just as dirty programs that he was routinely beating. He had become a hated and feared man by the big AQ program fans.

You knew that once Patrick Ewing left Georgetown that Hoya Paranoia would fade. You knew that the NCAA would eventually catch up to Tark and end his empire in the dessert, and we all knew that eventually somebody would drop a dime on one of Memphis’ one and dones. What nobody expected was that before Calapari could meet his apocalyptic downfall in Memphis he would jump ship and lead the bluest of blue blood programs who cheat more on accident than he ever did on purpose. Now instead of being a rouge anomaly at neat program in a non AQ conference, Calipari is a giant hypocritical horse’s ass at the biggest, brashest, fuck headyest program in all the world. His act slickster act was more palatable before he became the front man at college basketballs winningest program. It is the equivalent of John Dillinger becoming President of the United States. If you are going to be an outlaw be an outlaw, if you are going to run one of college basketballs blue blood programs you have to be an insufferable, phony, christian huckster like Bill Self, Roy Williams, or Ben Howland. Calipari blurred the lines and instead of being a martyr for gangster when the law came to Memphis he cashed out and took his once fresh act to a place where it is not by any means cute.

The Lowlights:

• His introductory press conference and midnight madness address to Kentucky fans are the most obnoxious moments in the history of spoken word.
• Sometime this year he will lock John Wall in an embrace and pretend he coached him
• There is much more to come. Stay tuned if you can stand it.

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By Rhett, May 9, 2009 6:27 pm

A few days ago, UNLV forward DeShawn Mitchell was released from the UNLV basketball program, headed by Lon Kruger. This is the sixth player to leave the program over the past year and a half. To outsiders looking in, this would be cause for concern. Why would an up and comming program, returning to the national spot light, be losing all of these players? Is it the coach? The program itself? Let’s take a closer look:

DeShawn Mitchell (F) – Freshman last year, had one decent break out game on the road vs Texas Pan American where he scored 14 points. After that, he struggled to hold his spot in the rotation, with several DNP’s and few minutes when he did play (And this was on a squad STARVING for meaningful minutes from a forward. Come on now. They were playing 6′3 guys at Center vs a 7′3 freak from Utah. ANYBODY could have had minutes at the three front court spots had they shown even the desire to play defense). It comes down to playing defense, which Mitchell did not. He was a high flier and shook the place when he dunked, but that’s all he could do. Plus, with the additions of several promising forwards and guards (Chase Stanback, Derek Jasper, to name a few), I’m sure he could see the writing on the wall. The two mentioned players have been able to practice with the team for the past year. Couldn’t have been hard for Mitchell to figure out.

Beas Hamga (C) – The hype in this town about his prep rankings killed him before he even stepped foot onto the floor. The idea of having an athletic 7 footer to go toe to toe with whoever the Mormons recruit from Australia or some meteor was a nice thought. What actually turned out was a timid unprepared lanky kid who was 3 steps late on defensive rotations, had no concept of an offensive game, and was just not ready. He was not ready, yet he wanted the playing time. He’ll get it at whatever small Indiana school he ended up at, so good for him. UNLV does not change diapers.

Marcus Lawrence (G) – Joke. This is UNLV (I don’t say this like UNLV is some elite school. They’ve gone through the garbage before. Kruger is clean and won’t stand for crap). He should have known what was expected of him having been born and raised in Las Vegas. Coming to practice drunk? C’mon man. Didn’t get a lot of run, but showed a little promise. I think UNLV was glad to have him as a local guy just for people to get excited about, but if he were still around this coming season, he’d be on the bench. Belfield and Willis would have been all over this guy.

Lamar Roberson (F) – Did this guy even play? I only remember reading a news paper article about the guy being lazy. Whatever. Kruger isn’t going to fight with somebody who wants to leave when during his stay he didn’t even act like he wanted to be here in the first place.

Emmanuel Adeife (F) – Rumor has it this guy interrupted a post game meeting by leaving, even when Kruger told him to stay put. Kruger flips out and kicks him off the team on the spot. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Troy Cage (F) – I remember he seemed promising. Didn’t play much really. The ol’ internets say he moved onto a JC in Texas to play more. Good for him I guess. Can’t imagine him playing much this next year either.

So that’s the 6. Lots of forwards bounced, which was noticed this year. What I see is the changing of the guard. The caliber of player that left is below the caliber of player that is coming in. UNLV has attracted transfers from UCLA, Kentucky, Memphis, and evidently, soon to be Kansas with Quintrell Thomas, a big forward who played sparingly last year for the Jayhawks.

When a program makes a step, and better talent is attracted to the team, the old guard can see they’re soon to be put to the bench and makes their move to another spot in order to play. That and some of these other guys were just clowns that didn’t have a good enough idea that Lon Kruger is going to make you play defense and work hard. Those things are important.

So you outsiders with your negative aspirations as to the route the UNLV hoops program is headed – think again. Can’t wait for some midnight madness, and the changing of the guard is completed.

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By Sam, February 24, 2009 4:50 pm

Championship Week is coming, Selection Sunday is coming, and The 8th Annual Tourney Trip is just a few weeks away. Tickets have been secured, hotel rooms reserved, vacation time scheduled, airplane tickets bought, and a car decided on. Philadelphia is not only the destination for 8 deserving college basketball programs, but for a knowledgeablegroup of 5 basketball fans making a trip to a great city to watch what are hopefully some good games. The possabilities are wide open for what teams might make the trip with us, and there is still hope for a few of our favorites to play in front of us next month.

Here is who I would like to see:

UConn. Given the location we have chosen it seem inevitable that we get these Big East monsters, so I chose to embrace it. I have never seen them play and look forward to seeing one of the great powers of my era live and in person for the first time.Since you can’t have a #1 seed without the #16 Seed I’ll take whoever they give us there and like it. Due to our location I would bet we get the MEAC champs.  I am one of the few people in our group that likes to see a 1/16 matchup. Probably because I am one of the few who remembers the excitement of Holy Cross/Kansas. At some point a 16 will beat a 1 and I want to be there for that.

The other benefit of having the 1 seed at your site is that you get the 8/9 game which opens up a world of possabilities. My preference for this would be Dayton and either LSU, Kentucky, Tennessee, or some other SEC squad that can play its way in but not up the field. My feeling is that the A10 is really a hidden gem in college hoops and is consistently under appreciated and under rated. I would like to see what kind of damage a well coached team like Dayton could do against an SEC team with an inflated record, and possibly against a power like UConn.

For the other pod I would hope to get a 3/14 and a 6/11. The 2/15, 7/10 is to similar to the 1/16, 8/9, and 4/13, 5/12 seems like under achievers against upset specials that never quite happen when we are there. So I’ll take the 3/14, 6/11 for not only its upset potenital but because that 11 seed is usually reserved for some of the last at larges in the field. That is where I would like to see either Maryland or UNLV. UNLV is an obvious choice because it would be great for Rhett to have a chance to follow his team all the way into the NCAA tournament, and if we get UNLV it would also prevent us from getting BYU and their roster of 28 year old goof balls. UNLV is also a tradition rich program who has been resurgent in recent years under a great coach. Maryland would also be great since Gary Williams is a classic character, their fans are cool people that hate Duke, and I can make lots of inappropriate Len Bias cocaine jokes. The 6 seed counterpart has to Syracuse. I have been an admirer of the Cuse for a long time but have never had the privilege to see them in person. Magoo is a great coach, I love that big orange mascot, the 2-3 zone, and would like to buy Gerry McNamara a beer if he is in town.

In our 3/14 game I want to see Memphis and Cornell.The cerebral Ivy League approach against the running and gunning style that Calapari has established at Memphis would be fun and I love that Memphis is a powerhouse in a non BCS league, and that the Ivy League doesn’t’ play a conference tournament. And once again I’ve never seen either team.

For the record I always want to see Western Michigan, Michigan State, Eastern Michigan, Oakland, and Georgetown. I’d be happy with all of them at our site every year. However we are 0-7 trying to see Michigan State and it looks like this year they will be a #2 either in Dayton or Minneapolis, and the other 4 have almost no chance at making the field so I am trying to be realistic.