I’ve mentioned this many times before to the point of nausea, but I am about to do so again. The St. John’s Red Storm are my favorite team. Not only in college basketball. In all of sports. There’s a few reasons why — mostly Bootsy to blame — yet it is the reality of my life. So few people roaming this planet were as excited as I was when their season was about to open on Friday night against Wagner.

Sometimes sports just takes a backseat to news around the world. Friday was one of those instances. (AP)

Before the game, however, some really horrific news broke. Everyone knows the story by now. At the time, though, the events unfolding in France were simply mind-boggling. Like many other people, I struggled with trying to separate my emotions from attempting to enjoy the basketball games. Some people, ones smarter than I at least, decided to not venture on Twitter or discuss the matter at all. It was their right. So, too, were those who tried to find comfort in the sports being played. To each their own, really. There’s definitely no right or wrong way to handle tragedy.

Judging others who decided to continue to watch basketball and — how dare they — comment on it, are infuriating. Parts of me get it. We’re all a little bit selfish. We need to make things about us. When something as tragic as the terror that was taking place in France is happening far from home, people have to localize their outrage. Still, the anger was misplaced, misguided and mostly founded out of ignorance. Some people HAD to tweet about the basketball games because it was their jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

The college basketball season is a few days away from starting. On Friday a full slate of games will begin, with ESPN‘s marathon of hoops kicking off shortly after, all of which will start the season off with a bang. It will also be buried under the wasteland that is football. Not that there’s anything wrong with men literally ruining their bodies for our entertainment, yet I do wish we would pay a little more attention in the realm of shooty hoops when the season starts. Every game, especially if your program is not an annual world-beater, means something at the end of the day. I mean, this isn’t Major League Baseball or anything.

Oh Yes, It’s Back…

With the season quickly approaching there are going to be many bandwagon supporters of the sport. I wrestle with which one is worst: ambassadors of the sport who turn a blind eye to anything possibly wrong with it, or those who ignore it for 10-ish months of the year, then pretend they like it when the season starts, disappear a week later, finally culminating with their “undying love” of the sport showing again come March. There should be some sort of survey one must take which rates your college basketball love.

Example: Do you love crowds?

• A) Yes
• B) No
• C) Lobsters

If you answered “A”, then you are a true college basketball fan. You are also admitting you like a sport as much for the atmosphere as you do the quality of the play on the court — as the latter isn’t nearly the same quality as the NBA’s, but accepting it never will be only makes one enjoy the sport.  If you answered “No”, well, you are probably a communist. Anyone who answered “Lobsters” is certainly reading the right column. Honestly, A Column of Enchantment is your go to source for lobster news, opinion, and insight.

Read the rest of this entry »

So you guys are back to being actual humans now, right? You’re no longer in sleep-mode or whatever? It feels like forever since we have met. In reality, though, it has only been since April. I guess that means I need to ask the question: How did you handle your offseason blues? The good news for the amateur shooty hoops obsessed was that there wasn’t lack of top-notch scandals to hold our attention during that period of time. No worries, either. We will get to (parts of) that in a little bit.

How was my offseason? Thanks for asking, not at all an inanimate object! Things went pretty well. I scribbled words that barely formed sentences at other places. Those columns tend to be on the more serious front than our beloved A Column of Enchantment, but it would be dumb to not acknowledge that without Randy (our fearless leader) letting me scribble this barely about college basketball column that I wouldn’t be writing at all. It in a sense rejuvenated me, as I grew (still am to a degree) tiresome of the everyday grind that is covering basketball. I mean, it is brutal when you think about how seriously people take sports. It isn’t life or death or anything remotely all that important. Anyway, you can blame Randy if you hate me for giving me enough motivation to start actively writing again. Those more serious works (plug time!) can be found at numerous places. Here are the links to my author page for each: The Student Section — Crossover Chronicles — Today’s Fastbreak. They pay me for some unknown reason, so go support me there if you like my work. If you hate me, then why in the hell are you reading this?

Should have mentioned this earlier, but those familiar with A Column of Enchantment already know that our column is — by design — all over the place. But for those new to reading our column (it is ours, because I like to think all of you are my friends and stuff), it is generally a very light and hopefully fun look at college basketball (barely) and pop-culture type stuff. Our first entering of this season, unfortunately, starts with some of the sads.

_________

Grantland is gone. It is done. It sucks. There aren’t proper words in the English language (or ones that I am smart enough to know of) which can properly describe how I feel about this. I am aware that it is no longer cool or hip to be a writer who likes Bill Simmons, but I always have. When I was (much) younger he was a breath of fresh air to me. His style was fun, even with his obvious homerisms, and I was always of the belief that reading one lengthy yet fun column a week was better than reading 2349082390429892348239042.03 iffy-at-best ones, was the best of best options.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I tried to give everyone advice as how they should deal with the college basketball offseason. Hopefully you listened. Sans, you know, the part about pitting your children against each other in a fistfight for lukewarm milk. You could probably have done without that. Still, the season has been over for what seems like forever now. Have you adjusted properly? Did you, or did you not, kill anyone because you are really struggling to find ways to entertain yourself? I know. It is tough. We should keep trying to get through this together. At least we have the rest of the (much saner than I) Rush the Court staff to keep us informed of all the offseason maneuvers.

Some of Us at Moe’s Are Already in Sleep Mode (credit: Simpsons/FOX)

There is something new to talk about this week, though. It continues on our path of dealing with the offseason blues. For me, at least, it is something I probably think about far too often as it is, but figured I’d incorporate you little Johnny McPoopsticks in on the conversation. I want to know if you people are all real. Like, as in actual real human beings, or if you have been put on this planet solely for my amusement. Maybe I should explain a wee bit further.

———————–

Have you guys ever seen that Simpsons episode where Homer leaves Moe’s and Moe tells the other two customers that “He’s gone. Time to shut off.” and they all go in some sleep-like state? Yeah. About that. I think that is how all of you are. For real life. I don’t think every single person that reads this is actually a real person. Think about it for a second. Do you think I am a real entity? That every Wednesday I type on my laptop for you to read A Column of Enchantment on Thursdays? Or, more likely, I am just some digital code or work of (your) God put here to entertain you. I mean, you have never met me. You have no idea what I do when I am not typing on my laptop for your pleasure. For all you know, as soon as you read this I go into hibernation until the following week or fly back to my home planet of 0923498234 (We are advanced. We use numbers because math is the universal language).

More so: There is no way all you people can exist. Seriously. There are billions upon billions of people supposedly living on our planet. I have met, maybe, like a few thousand of you. Even a large portion of those people are just bodies walking by me. They might have empty craniums, possibly robot-like, and are only there for my eyeballs to see in an attempt to trick me into thinking there are other fully functioning members of society. And I don’t buy it for a single second.

Read the rest of this entry »

That was fun. We got to experience college basketball in its best form during the NCAA Tournament. We had upsets, fun stories, and a slew of hyperbole (my personal favorite). The season even ended with the vampire known to the public as Coach K winning his fifth national title. It couldn’t have gone better, really. I mean that. The ratings were good; people used those ratings to blindly ignore glaring issues within the sport; and the world is a better place for it… or something — likely something, but whatever.

This man scoffs at your criticism. (AP)

It is over, though. Sad days are upon us. Grab a box of tissues if you will, but (spoiler alert) the college basketball season is over. Dead. Murdered by the final buzzer going off in the championship game. The 2014-15 season is history. Ancient history if you hate Duke and just a rumor of a season that will join other urban legends if you are a Kentucky fan. Regardless, it is over and it isn’t coming back unless George Carlin shows up at your doorstep with a gosh slam phone booth (under 28 year-olds, Google it). If my mom taught me anything — well, anything other than knowing I am the greatest, ever — it is the past is in the past for a reason. It is time to move on. I mean, we gave the Duke fan base a full three days to relish in their victory. Time is up now. Seriously, Duke, what have you done for me lately? Not to mention that Coach K’s acceptance (all the sarcasm) of the one-and-done philosophy being used as a way to further elevate his standing is as laughable as it is to look in the mirror. What, just me?

Read the rest of this entry »

(Ed. Note: The first chapter of the Lavin story can be located here. Also, quotes may or may not be verbatim. Or accurate.)

The dark clouds have parted over the St. John’s campus. Despite much speculation regarding a possible extension, the Red Storm athletic department has parted ways with head coach Steve Lavin. Different reports have stated that Lavin was looking for more money and an extension, but that doesn’t matter now — the Johnnies have gone in another direction. One which they hope will bring much shine back to the program. That direction is going to be led by the greatest player in the history of their program, Chris Mullin. Still, Lavin has one last (short) adventure left in his story.

As he parts, Steve Lavin leaves Chris Mullin with some words of wisdom … kinda. (ESPN)

———————-

Lavin is cleaning out his office. Unlike most other college basketball coaches, though, his office isn’t filled with film, game plans, or any other type of traditional coach’s office fillers. Instead it has a desk filled with restaurant menus, a calendar on the wall with the dates filled in with reservation times, and a coffee cup filled with a weird, green looking juice. This was Lavin’s home. Not anymore, though, as he has to leave it clean for the person who is taking his job. As he is cleaning out his office he makes a decision to be a good man. Lavin, as he often does, decides that he should leave Mullin a note that has some positive reinforcement in it. As with all things Lavin, though, the note becomes less of a good look memo and more of a watch your back warning.

Dear Chris Mullin,

Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of people grow up hoping to one day become a professional athlete. Whether it is a guy who gets paid to hit a ball with a stick, hurl a different-sized ball towards the general direction of a basket, or hit other people as hard as you possibly can for the sake of a touchdown, most young people have at least entertained the notion. Then, well, reality sets in. Baseball requires incredible hand-eye coordination, which you most certainly do not have. Basketball is not looking for slightly chubby 6’0″ centers. Football requires you to not be a lazy oaf who thinks that running a 40 in nine seconds is an accomplishment. After that reality sets in, folks turn to other dreams. Some think about being a firefighter, others unicorn tamers, and a few more conjure up the idea of owning a pro sports team to fill that void of pro sports aspirations. There are a few other people, like me, who dream of something else. A world where they can own their own college. Wait… what? Let me explain. The purpose of wanting to own a university is not so much to help educate our youth — I mean, they’re rather helpless at this point anyway (am I right, Mike Wilbon?) — it is to selfishly oversee and build a Division I basketball program. Seems logical, right? Eh…

Luckily for me, I have a few friends who thought this was a tremendous idea. Now that we know such a thing is actually feasible, we started the process of building our university from scratch. With that being said, though, I doubt you want to read the logistics of it all. And to be honest, neither do I. Thankfully we live in a world where technology trumps all. I discovered an app on my phone which has allowed some form of time travel. Now, I can’t actually go to the future myself, but I can pull articles from there! That’s as exciting as hell. What I will now share with you is the article I found from 30 years from now that happens to tell the story of the university Randy, Drew, Bennet and I (all Rush the Court scribblers) started to build on Tuesday. I haven’t read it myself yet. I guess we will enjoy our college’s triumphs together! I bet we did awesome and the future is as cool as heck.

The Tragic Story of The Club State Pool Cleaners

Posted by Michael DeCourcy Jr. on March 26th, 2045

It is amazing to think that it has been 30 years since Club State University was formed from a simple idea. It was just four guys, bloggers (remember those?), who found a loophole in the then-governing body of college sports, the NCAA. As our history books have taught us, the NCAA was a rather inept governing body. It allowed athletes to be punished over others’ clerical errors, forced kids to play basketball games on school nights, and didn’t even pay them to play. Think about that: There was a time in our country when an institution limited another group of people’s powers, while making millions upon millions of dollars off the backs of their hard work, and a good chunk of people were kind of okay with it. Alas, this story has nothing to do with the now-ancient practice of free labor. It is about four men who changed college basketball by founding one of the greatest basketball programs ever, but one that’s time has seemingly passed because of so many tragic, yet preventable events.

The Club State Pool Cleaners were the brainchild of one man. Joseph Nardone, at the time, was a rather low-level blogger, incredibly unsuccessful in the business world, longing for a day when he could do something he actually loved. Articles from those years report on Nardone’s obsession with building a Division I program despite being pretty dumb. Here is an excerpt from Sports Illustrated (you may now know it as being called Sports With No Pictures) a few months after the paperwork to legalize the school was filed:

Read the rest of this entry »

A Column of Enchantment has been a fun and weird thing since it debuted a few months ago on Rush the Court. When Randy and I discussed the idea of it — a barely about college basketball college basketball column — he got what I was trying to pitch. The basic premise of it was that there were no real actual premise or structure to it. That being said, I have often relied upon the touching of three major topics after I meet you with the opening paragraph. In that particular structure we have compared Kentucky to Lobsters battling Unicorns, talked about Christian Slater being awesome and often talked about my man-crush on Fred Hoiberg. Other times I don’t even actually cover college basketball. I’ll talk about Dancing With The Stars and mask the absurdity of doing so by adding a few college hoops figures to the cast. Then there’s the time I wrote a fictional Steve Lavin story and, well, people seemed to enjoy it. Basically, the easiest way to describe this column: utter poop-show of sometimes awesomeness.

Much like this North Florida band member Wednesday evening, this week’s Column of Enchantment is going through sort of a crisis. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

All in all, A Column of Enchantment has been about fun, bad jokes, even worse analogies, often not talking about college basketball and mostly the idea that it is okay to not be a college basketball writer who takes himself too seriously. There are enough of those types of college basketbloggers in the world — not to mention those who are void of personality or seem to have no earthly idea what they are talking about. There are good ones too. That is certainly worth mentioning. In my less than humble opinion I think that the college basketball media world is packed with the best group of any of the groups of sports writing out there. Regardless, I just wanted A Column of Enchantment to help break up your day as well as mine, bring a smile to the dozen of you guys who read (and enjoy) this and even poke fun at myself.

Yet here I am. A miserable fellow. Things have been tough on your good ole pal Joe lately. That’s not something you care to hear about, I know — and honestly, I really don’t give a fudge. Other sports writers scribble their thoughts for money, fame, validation or other tangible reasons. I put mine on the laptop because I like feeling creative and it has always been a way to relieve stress. Even if it means I don’t add anything extra to the discourse that is the sport. That’s probably not fair — and is a certainly a horrible way to go writing about sports — but that’s my style. If you are like some of the people who have somehow found my email address (when I didn’t have it publicly listed) and decided to email me to tell me you like my stuff but think I am a bit too kooky, you can go to the other site where I write on the topic of college hoops more seriously. But for now you’re here at RTC, reading A Column of Enchantment, so you are going to listen me whine a bit. Stop reading now if you don’t want to deal with it. With that being said, though, I’ll still try to manage to hurl in some bad jokes for you too because I’m most certainly a man of the people.

—————————-

March Madness is here. Like, for real here. It is my favorite time of the year and probably yours too. I mean, there’s nothing like a little unpaid labor making millions upon millions of dollars for universities who do everything in their power to keep those without it from having some. Those unpaid laborers are also playing some single-game elimination hoops for our entertainment. Since we have long ago been able to compartmentalize those facts, which has allowed us to enjoy said Tournament without guilt, we should all be incredibly happy. Expect, um, I am not.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you guys notice that the insides of our skulls, otherwise known as our craniums, are acting weird? Don’t panic. This isn’t a new disease or anything. It has been going on for a bit over a week, seems to only come along during this part of the calendar year, and it inevitably results in people who had a lighter diagnosis of this same illness when the college basketball season was young now having a full-blown case of the Madness. Nevertheless, you are sick. You have the sickies. It is like a combination of SARS and a urinary tract infection. Luckily for you, though, there are cures. Multiple fixes of this gosh slam abomination of mild-altering yucks. All you need to do is watch the basketball on the picture-box or, for you hip kids, stream games on your laptop or mobile cellular and non-cellular devices. Man, it’s the future! Doc Brown would be so proud.

Are You Ready?

However, some of you people are so far from help that there is no cure. You have spent your entire October until now just watching men hit other men because of a football or something and using any time that is not related to violence watching your relationship with your lover significantly crumble under the watchful eyes of Robert Kirkman. I mean, the new Walking Dead spin-off will certainly not help your marriage. Well, unless you and your loved one use it as a preparatory tool for the impending zombie invasion — and trust me, it is near.

Wait. Time out. Something about basketball and disease. Oh, yeah, that’s right. You’re going to die. Not like right now or anything, but pretty soon in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how old you are because I lack the ability to see you through my laptop (or do I?). Let’s just say for the sake of round numbers you are 20. That means, unless tragedy strikes you early, you have a good 50 to 70 years left on this planet. That’s unless the FDA approves my patent pending drink called “drink,” which will allow you to live until you are 450 years old (we just started the testing on unicorns phase and I must say that they haven’t died yet). Dying is not fun. I don’t know from experience, but not a single dead person has come to me, tweeted at me or emailed me to tell me otherwise. I guess there is a small chance that being dead is so much fun that they are too busy giving Jesus H. Christ the business to be readily available for some hot takes on Twitter. Really, who knows. Not me. Certainly not you because you are not me. Only the dead people and their god(s) know. And you know what? F-them for not sharing the details. Read the rest of this entry »

The wonderful idea of ESPNU turns 10 years old this week. The reason I mention it as an idea is because it hasn’t exactly been what it was originally designed to be — you know, a network dedicated solely to the world of college sports. Now, while it is mostly revolved around everything college athletic competition related, the programming on it sometimes goes off the beaten trail.

ESPNU

All of that did make to do some pondering, though, which is an incredibly dangerous thing. What if ESPNU was scheduled the way it should be booked for a network designed to cover all things in amateur athletics? Don’t get me wrong either. I get why they do some of the things they do. As much as I dislike Colin Cowherd, he is put on that network to generate ratings, attention and other things that something like Katz Korner unlikely provides. I would argue that — if the network truly dedicated itself in a more proper way — that more broadcasts of college-only related material would work. In my opinion, and it may very will be only mine, is is ESPN’s lack of dedicating ESPNU in the correct areas that makes it the non-blood relative of the ESPN family of networks. ESPN is obviously the patriarch, with ESPN2 the spouse. I suppose it also makes ESPN Classic (I honestly don’t even know if that’s still a thing) a distant cousin. ESPN3 and Watch ESPN are like the cool in-laws — you really like them, but that has as much to do with consuming them whenever you want and never being over saturated with their presence. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Here is how we are going to go about booking ESPNU. I am going to go through a random day’s lineup. After each show I will say if it works, why it works, how it can be tweaked and some other nonsense. Now, with that being said, I should also mention that one of my true dislikes is ESPNU’s constant rerun approach, mostly because of its lack of original programming. There might be instances when I will like a program on the network, but when we book a day’s lineup to my suiting later, it will appear less in the day’s programming. For your information and reference I am using an actual 24-hour window of the channel’s broadcast lineup — as pulled from ESPN’s own TV listing section — for the reference of listings. Let’s start at 9:oo AM ET and take a look at their lineup.

Read the rest of this entry »