Continue reading »]]> After reading Rhett’s post lamenting the irritating nature of the BYU fans at the Mountain West tournament I was instantly sympathetic to his plight. However after some reflection I feel that it must be pointed out that all college basketball phenomena are at some level annoying to the hard-core fan. BYU fans are a bit goofier than most and carry their LDS persecution complex with them into athletics, however ignorance of the sport that they are infatuated with is not unique to the faithful in Provo.

Larger fan bases always have a fair amount of bandwagon fans who come along for the ride when times are good. This is amplified considerably when things are arguably as good as they have ever been. In the case of BYU this isn’t a team just making a run at a conference title, this is a team with the POY, top line seed credentials and national exposure unseen since Jim McMahon was playing QB for the football team in the mid 80′s. BYU basketball is a cultural event in LDS circles in the region and beyond. It is a genuine phenomenon. UNLV, New Mexico, Colorado State, etc… are simply basketball programs having seasons that will attract basketball fans of the school. There is no bandwagon effect and thus no bandwagon fans to become annoyed with.

At Ole Miss there are a few thousand hardcore fans that comprise the season ticket base. These fans are basically knowledgeable and restrained. During a mid week game in February against Auburn when there were less than 3,000 people in the stands, the crowd was respectful and uninspired. A few weeks earlier when Kentucky was in town with 3,000 fans of their own, the Ole Miss faithful were nowhere near respectful. They were boisterous, obnoxious, and overly vocal with the referees. The rarely full student section started the “bull shit,” chant over a pretty obvious traveling call and there were audible boos after nearly every unfriendly whistle.  After the win over Kentucky an editorial in the Daily Mississippian was dedicated to how much fun that game was compared to most others and musing that if fans showed up with that kind of energy every game the basketball team would be more successful.

Unless you have a basketball program with a 50+ year bandwagon like UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, or Kansas you are going to get free riders that come out only for the big time games when a program is successful to comprise the bulk of a following. When you have a basketball program experiencing a phenomenal once in a generation type run such as Georgetown in the early 80’s or UNLV in the early 90’s you are going to get non basketball fans and people unaffiliated with the University who identify culturally with what they think the program represents. This is healthy for the sport and helps us to look back with a greater appreciation for how special an era of college basketball was. After all crossover success in any genre is a metric of success.

In the case of the 2010-11 BYU Cougars you have a community, a fan base, and a faith all of which are a bit different than what most of us are used to becoming enthralled with the fortunes of a college basketball program. This is I’m sure annoying to be around if you don’t have any particular affinity for BYU. It is however ultimately better for the sport when there are people out there caring about it. Those goofy Mormon families at the Thomas & Mack are equivalent to the inner city kids wearing Georgetown vinyl jackets in 1982, or Gucci Row at the T&M during Tark’s era. They are a fleeting group of uber bandwagoners who are experiencing something memorable.  Deep down we all want our program to experience something like that.

Rhett’s post is exceptionally titled. The BYU fans that he was talking about don’t deserve Jimmer Fredette. We the hardcore fans of X program deserve this kind of thing to happen for us! Until it does all we can do is wait and hate and realize that when and if our time finally does come we are going to have a whole bunch of new friends in the building with us along for the ride. And trust me as a former season ticket holder at Eastern Michigan where you can watch a game with literally a few hundred of your closest friends and hardcore hoops fans, there is something electric about a full and rocking arena. Even if it is full of johnny come latelys and rocking with the noise of the confused.

Continue reading »]]> So the NCAA shut down our hate down with their long reach. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to still hate on jerks it will just have to be more insidious to make it past the long reach of the evil cabal in Indianapolis.

What I’m thinking about right now though is that we have games finally tipping off tonight all over the country. I’ve got my eye on East Lansing for Michigan State and Eastern Michigan although strangely I’ll be in Oxford, Mississippi watching Ole Miss square off with Arkansas State. A real border war to be sure. Being outside of my college hoops comfort zone for the first time ever is an interesting experience. Hopefully watching Ole Miss and Memphis games will give me at least some level of enjoyment because I am really going to miss watching MAC and Big Ten games during the bleak Michigan winters. Oh well that is part of the trade off when relocating.

Here is what I am rooting for this year:

1. Michigan State to put it all together and get Izzo his 2nd national championship. Hang every banner possible and silence all the chirpers who think Michigan State is a notch below the blue bloods and on the same level with Purdue and Wisconsin. Time to just lay waste to everyone!

2. Ole Miss to make the tournament finally. It won’t take much to have the best era of hoops ever at the school. Here is hoping I am around to witness it. Win 23 games and be the 11 seed its not that unreasonable of an expectation.

3. The further decline of North Carolina and UCLA. Over indulged fan bases with rosters full of blue chip talent falling apart and finishing way down in their conferences put a smile on my face. I especially like it when their secondary rivals pass them up. Watching North Carolina lose to Sid Lowe and the NC State Wolfpack and Howland loss to Cal is a sweet sweet thing.

4. Memphis to emerge as the gangsters paradise of the Deep South and start making tournament runs again. Good facility, passionate fans, complete disregard for rules and convention, and close proximity to me make this a must. Pastner is like Al Pacino in the first Godfather. I can’t wait for him to become a full fledged gangster and run this thing proper. I’m going to buy a Memphis jersey that has a dollar sign instead of a number and sit in the front row while they murder Tulsa by 45 points.

5. Kentucky to start being the focus of NCAA investigators. Can we at least make it uncomfortable for Kentucky’s rampant cheating? Can we at least get somebody in Indy to rustle a few papers before they play a big game and make the old blue coats nervous? The NY Times piece on Bledsoe has wetted my appetite and it looks like Turkish millionare Enes Kanter being ruled permanently ineligible gives me reason to hope this could be a trend. The fact that Tennessee and Florida have become the good guys in the SEC shows just how far out of balance things have gotten since Cal rolled in to town.

6. The shit show that is Michigan basketball to fall completely apart and be historically bad. Their roster is complete garbage and they should start losing games by big numbers again soon. I’d like to see the Gayze Rage half empty while Illinois is beating them by 45 points after the first media time out in the 2nd half. I don’t expect a return to the glory days of Brian Elerbe but at least an homage to the Avery Queen era would be nice.

7. Duke to lose a home game in the midst of a week long ESPN slurp fest. Nothing will be as obnoxious as watching Duke on ESPN this season. I just hope that they lose one to Virginia or Maryland in a game where ESPN used it as a vehicle to promote another more high profile Duke game, and filled pre game and halftime with stupid puff pieces of Kyle Singler riding a fucking unicycle and dorks camping out for tickets.

Thats all I need out of my college hoops season this year.

Continue reading »]]> #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.

Continue reading »]]> 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.

Continue reading »]]> 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.