Where is Mario West???

The front page of ESPN this morning was this:

Where is Mario West?

This made me want to know where Super Mario West had signed this offseason. He is currently a member of Scaligera Basket Verona of the Italian league. Congratulations, Super Mario!

What We Missed Last Night

Last night, the KHH bloggers went to MSG to see St. John’s and Iona. Unfortunately, this was on the same night as Seton Hall-UConn from the Rock and we were unable to attend both KHH events. After we returned from the games, we saw that Seton Hall shockingly upset #9 UConn, and I would have been very disappointed if we had not seen Sean Armand break the MAAC record for 3 pointers made in a game. However, Seton Hall’s victory was not the story. The real KHH story was Seton Hall senior guard  Peter Dill. In his four year college career, Dill has played a total of 8 minutes. This gives him a lot of time to be creative on the bench, especially when Seton Hall is playing well. Check out ESPN’s surprisingly well done recap of the game. Warning: this is extremely KHH:

College Basketball at MSG Recap

A St. John's Huddle

Tonight, the KHH bloggers headed to MSG for the first time ever to see St. John’s take on Louisville in a Big East Conference matchup. After we looked at our tickets and we arrived at MSG, we realized that there would be another game following St. John’s. Iona would be battling Siena in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) game. We thought this would be good news at the time, and it turned out to be great news. First I will recap the St. John’s game, followed by the Iona one. This was a very boring game, and if it had been the only game of the night, I do not believe it would have been worth it for us to go out. The Johnnies were, in a word, awful. They shot 28% from the floor and were 2-16 from 3. Many of these 3’s came when the shot clock was winding down and a chucked 3 was the only option. This is so unacceptable, because in college, the shot clock is 35 seconds. There is no reason why a team should not be able to get a somewhat open shot in 35 seconds, especially a team with the talent that St. John’s has. St. John’s moves very slowly and never pushes the ball. This leads to very boring basketball and very few points. Also, the longer a team holds the ball for, the more likely they are to turn it over, which happened too much tonight. The first half was especially awful for the Red Storm. After jumping out to an 8-3 lead, Louisville ended the half on a 26-10 run and never looked back. St. John’s first half field goal % was under 20. For the Red Storm, the only bright spot was D’Angelo Harrison, who had a Carmelo-like 24 points. This means that he scored a lot, but it did not feel like it because the rest of the team was doing so poorly and nobody else scored. Moe Harkless added 12 boring points. My two favorite Johnnies, God’sgift Ochiuwa and Sir’Dominic Pointer shot a combined 4-17 and only had 10 points. I was pretty disappointed. For Louisville, Russ Smith led the way off the bench with 17 points, 7 assists, and 4 rebounds in only 23 minutes. Kyle Kuric added 15 points.

God'sgift Ochiuwa

Now on to the jokes and notes from this Big East matchup:

• As usual, Raphi was 25 minutes late for this game, which almost caused us to miss tip-off. Unfortunately, we got there in time to see terrible basketball.
• I was very surprised at how empty MSG was for this game. I of course was not expecting a sellout for a mediocre St. John’s team, but this game was more empty than the Rock for the Nets. According to ESPN, over 9,000 tickets were sold. I find that hard to believe. After the St. John’s game ended, most people left the building.
• Louisville missed a wide open dunk in this game. It was pretty funny. They almost missed another one later, but instead got a lucky roll.
• The St. John’s student section was extremely pathetic in this game. They probably had about 100 people, which is nothing. They were not loud at all and did not effect the game. They also all did not stay for the second game. See picture below:
  

  St. John's Student Section

• St. John’s had two t-shirt tosses in this game. The first one was when we were in our real seats, which were not horrible, but still somewhat high up. The Red Storm cheerleaders did not have a t-shirt gun like they do at Nets games, and instead only had a bungee-chord-like mechanism to launch t-shirts. The cheerleaders could not figure out how to use this, and no t-shirts came even close to us. With less than 5 minutes remaining, we moved down to about the 6th or 7th row at center court. For the Heat-Knicks game on April 15th, on Stubhub, the cheapest seat in the section we were in would be $999. We also stayed in these seats for the entirety of the second game. Anyway, right after we moved into these seats, there was another t-shirt toss. First, Raphi was able to tip a shirt over to me which I then snatched up. A minute later Raphi caught a shirt cleanly. What a success. After we got both shirts, a guy yelled at Raphi, “These are not your seats!”. He continued to heckle Raphi a little after this. It did not come close to Jonah’s beer incident at Mets-Astros, but it did cause some controversy. On to the t-shirts themselves, they are very nice. First of all, they are wrapped with real tape and not Petro’s leg tape. Also, they are only size large, not 2XL like Nets games. Even the design on the shirt is nice, without any advertisements for Pepsi Max.
• In the middle of the Iona game, a Louisville player came into the stands, very close to us, to see someone he knew. I tried to get a picture of him close up, but my camera was being annoying, so this is the best I got:

Louisville player in the crowd

See more St. John’s-Louisville pictures below:

A Foul Shot

Another Foul Shot

Sir'Dominic Pointer

God'gift

Sir'Dominic

D'Angelo Harrison

D'Angelo Harrison

D'Angelo Harrison

Moving on to the second game, which had Iona facing off against its MAAC rival Siena. First off, I would like to give some background information on these two colleges, for those of you who had never heard of them before, like me. Iona College is in New Rochelle, New York, which is a quick Metro-North ride away. A famous alumnus of the Iona Gaels is Jason Motte who saved Game 7 of the World Series this year for the Cardinals. Siena College is located in Loudonville, New York, which is in the eastern part of the state (pretty much the middle of nowhere). Siena has had a lot of basketball success recently, making the NCAA tournament in 2008, 2009, and 2010, and even beating Maryland and Ohio State in the tourney. Both colleges are Roman Catholic schools.

Sean Armand

Now I will move on to the basketball aspects of this game, followed by jokes and notes. Siena came into this game with a mediocre 5-7 record and averaging only 60.7 points per game, 314th in the nation. Ew. Iona, on the other hand, was 10-3 and averaging 85.1 points per game, 5th in the nation. Right when I saw that, I knew this would obviously be a blow out, which it was. Two of the biggest reasons for Iona’s early dominance this season have been guard Scott Machado, averaging 13.6 points per game and a whopping 10.4 assists, and transfer (from Arizona, a big basketball school) guard Momo Jones, averaging 16 ppg. I was expecting these two players, as well as big man Michael Glover, to dominate this game, but they were not the story. The story of this game was sophomore guard Sean Armand. Coming into this game, Armand was averaging 13 minutes and 7 points per game off the bench for Iona. Nothing special at all. In this game, Armand played 22 minutes, scored 32 points, broke the MAAC conference record with 10 3’s in a game, and scored the last 20 points (yes, in a row) of the first half for the Gaels. No, this is not a typo; you may need to reread that. Nobody else for Iona took more than 10 shots. Armand took 22, 19 of them being from 3. Think about that. He shot 19 3 pointers in a 40 minute game in which he only played 22 minutes of. Wow. Sean made Siena’s 3 point defense look like the Nets. Armand also looks and acts like a certain Nets player who has not been living up to expectations this season, Anthony Morrow. They even both share the number 22. I think the Nets should just pick up Armand right now and dump Morrow to Iona. Maybe Armand would be able to make a 3 for them. Scott Machado also had a nice game for the Gaels, with 9 points, 9 rebounds, and 9 assists. The coach took him out with 5 minutes left. I would have left him in so he could get a triple-double at MSG. Momo Jones also had a nice game with 14 points and 7 assists. I was impressed by him.

Momo Jones and Scott Machado

Now on to the jokes and notes from this game:

• As mentioned earlier, after the St. John’s game, most fans left the arena. However, a pretty strong amount of Iona fans assembled behind one of the baskets. There were maybe 10 Siena fans at the game. Siena fans did not care to make the trip down from Loudonville.
• Siena had a freshman guard who was only 5’8”. However, he was their best player, scoring 22 points tonight. Raphi thought that this is who he would be if he was good. I have to agree. His name is Evan Hymes. See pictures below:
  

  Evan Hymes

  

  Evan Hymes

• Even though this was a neutral site game, only the Iona cheerleaders made an appearance. And they made a very large appearance. Between the Iona dancers and cheerleaders, there were over 50 girls behind the basket wearing cheerleading uniforms. It was such a joke. See below:
  

  Iona Cheerleaders

• The reason Momo Jones transferred from Arizona to Iona was to be closer to his sick grandmother, who lives in Harlem. I kind of feel bad for him. Instead of playing in front of thousands of crazy fans at Arizona, he has to play college basketball in Westchester. Whatever.
• By the end of this game, I found myself rooting strongly for Iona. This is mainly because of Armand’s amazing shooting, but also because of Iona’s style of play. It is the opposite of St. John’s. They push the ball off of misses and try to shoot within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock. This leads to exciting and fun basketball. We may try to attend another Iona game this season, but more on that later. Iona may have just become my favorite college basketball team and was the only reason to go to MSG tonight.
• After the game ended and we were leaving MSG, we saw some pictures that they put up of Knicks. Most of the pictures were of the Knicks best players. Then there was this. Ew:
  

  Jared. Ew.

See more Iona-Siena pictures below:

Jermel Jenkins of Iona

Momo Jones

A foul shot

Sean Armand

Now on to upcoming KHH events. The Devils play at home tomorrow and Friday, but it looks like the Stubhub prices might be too expensive for us. Instead, we will likely have a viewing party for Nets-Celtics tomorrow. All KHH fans are invited to watch this probably blowout, especially if The Hump misses his second game in a row. On Friday, however, Iona will be taking on Niagra on ESPNU in Westchester, and the KHH bloggers may try to make an appearance at that sure to be great game. More info to come.

Tweet of the Day: Most Watchable Game of All Time

Interesting question. Long Island Lizards vs. Chesapeake Bayhawks on ESPN2, perhaps?

Breaking News: Kim Humphries???

According to Tony Kornheiser, a possibly unreliable source, Kim Kardashian will change her name to Kim Humphries when she marries Kris. This is great news to all of us here at Kim Has Humps. Now, Kim will literally have The Hump’s name. Yay! I can’t wait for the wedding.

Introducing: The KHH Book Club

The KHH writers are about to begin reading a new book: ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun, by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

ESPN: Those Guys Have All the Fun

Click here to read about it on Deadspin.

It is a book that reveals a lot of funny and pathetic things about ESPN, ‘the worldwide leader in sports & entertainment.’ ESPN management must really hate this book.

Jonah and I have read two funny sports books already. This one, however, is actually popular – unlike the other two books we read. This book made bestseller lists before it was even published.

We’ve also read Men With Balls, by Drew Magary.

And God Save the Fan, by Will Leitch.

I strongly recommend Men With Balls. It was perfect, especially for us. God Save the Fan was very readable as well. These two books set the bar really high. Hopefully, this new book about ESPN will meet our high expectations. I plan on writing a few book reviews for our blog in the coming month of June.

Coach Avery on ESPN!

Now that the Nets’ season is over and they are not in the draft lottery, Coach Avery has apparently decided to work at ESPN. How do I know? As I was flipping through channels a few minutes ago, I came across Avery’s face and immediately grabbed my camera. Below is part of his opinions as the (deadly) position of ESPN analyst.

NBA Draft Lottery Preview

Tonight, the order of the top 14 picks in the upcoming NBA draft will be decided in the draft lottery at 8:30 on ESPN (ugh). This time last year I was very upset at the Nets missing out on John Wall and landing only the third pick in the draft (which was Derrick Favors) even though they finished with the worst record in the league. This year, the Nets traded their pick in the Deron Williams trade to the Jazz, who have two picks in the top 14 including what would have been the Nets’ 6th position. I will be rooting for the Jazz to get a bad pick so that it makes the Nets’ trade look better in the long run. Luckily, I don’t think that there is any especially good talent in the draft this year and I am not too upset that the Nets don’t have a lottery pick. However, the nets still will have 2 picks in the draft, the Lakers number 27 pick (part of the Sasha trade) and the 35th pick, which is their own. Hopefully they will trade at least one of these picks to get Dwight Howard, but maybe I’m just dreaming. Now, I will look into Cristina’s crystal ball (a disgusting ball that I had when I was 5 that Cristina made me bring in for the Spanish play) and pick what order the lottery will be this year. I think that the NBA controls the lottery and only created it so that they can give good players to the teams that they want to give them to.

Cristina's Crystal Ball

Here is my prediction:

1. Cleveland
2. Minnesota
3. Washington
4. Toronto
5. Sacramento
6. Utah (from the Nets)
7. Cleveland (from LA Clippers)
8. Detroit
9. Charlotte
10. Golden State
11. Milwaukee
12. Utah
13. Phoenix
14. Houston

Great Jim Rome Video

This is a great interview with Jim Rome in his early days. Wikipedia explains it better than I can:

Rome gained notoriety for an incident in his ESPN2 show Talk2 in 1994 when his guest was NFL quarterback Jim Everett. Rome had previously referred to Everett as “Chris” (after Chris Evert, the female tennis player), suggesting that Everett shied away from getting hit. Appearing as a guest on the show, Everett warned Rome about repeating the insult. Rome continued his taunt, causing Everett to overturn the table between them and shove Rome to the floor while still on the air. This situation never resulted in a lawsuit for either party. To this day Jim Rome still considers this event one of his early career mistakes.

Link: It’s Decision Time, for Dwight.

According to NetsDaily.com, Dwight Howard has told ESPN’s Ric Bucher that he is currently making his decisions about his future. For those Nets fans who believe in ‘keeping your fingers crossed,’ now is the time to place your middle finger on top of your index finger, as such: