Big East Report 1.9.08: A Day Late, and a Dollar Short

In the immortal words of Mase, “Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.” It’s a little presumptious, and a smidge self-important, that I’m singing those timeless lyrics to myself, but sue me (by the way, in that song, when Mase says girls “wanna give him sosa, but I’m like don’ try,” is he referring to anal HGH injections?). It’s been a decently busy time in the Big East since we last appeared on STF, so let’s recap:


Team With the Best Month: Notre Dame
I can’t pick Georgetown here, even though their 12-1 overall, 2-0 Big East puts them atop the conference; they lost to Memphis right before Christmas in their only “big time” game so far, a contest that featured as many Roy Hibbert sightings as JD Salinger ones. Notre Dame, meanwhile, is 12-2 (2-0), and has beaten Big 12 sleeper darling Kansas State, as well as Eddie Sutton’s San Fran squad, not to mention West Virginia and Connecticut. The last two don’t sound like much, but it’s still Huggins and Calhoun. Luke Harangody, who looks like Chris Kaman spawned a child with Chunk from The Goonies, is going off to the tune of 18 and 9 a contest. Marko asked me the other week, in one of our porn-centric GMail conversations, “Who’s gonna win this league?” I think he was referring to the Big East, although things are hazy because I was drinking in the middle of the day. Regardless, if Harangody can neutralize Hibbert in a game at MSG, ND might have a surprise shot to win the conference.


Player of the Month: Donte Green, Syracuse
In honor of the return of The Wire for its final season, we’ll take another Baltimore product here (that city has been good to ‘Cuse, no?). Donte Green, a 6-11, 226 pound banger (say this sentence to this point in a Gus Johnson voice and it’s funny), is averaging 19 in the net and 7 off the backboard for a surging (read: outside shot to do damage in the Big East, especially since they traditionally beat Georgetown once a year) Orange team. He’s gone over 20 in four of his last six games. If Jim Boeheim was a character on The Wire, would he be an alcoholic?


Team with the Worst Month: Seton Hall
I was riding this team’s jock harder than Joe Buck on David Eckstein circa 2006 in my earlier reports, and now I’m throwing them completely under the bus. Why? Despite having the leading scorer in the Big East (Brian Laing), the team has lost both its conference games. Granted, one was to ranked Marquette, and the other was to “generally tough” (the most vague compliment I could come up with, given the time parameters) Connecticut, but still, Seton Hall is ready to break through this year - you’d think - but they ain’t showing us anything. They have Pittsburgh this weekend (Big L, likely) and then, while the schedule seemingly gets easier, things will fall apart and tend to shatter, in the words of The Roots. Don’t cry for South Orange. It’s already dead.


Games to Watch:
Saturday, January 12th - Seton Hall vs. Pittsburgh. Your city experiences urban blight too?
Saturday, January 12th - Georgetown vs. UConn. I knew yer daddy, boy.
Saturday, January 12th - Marquette vs. ND. Catholic girls are easy, brah.
Monday, January 14th - Pittsburgh vs. Georgetown. Aaron Gray just stopped convulsing from last year’s Big East title game.


Generally Irrelevant Family Guy Quote of the Week
(I’ve also been watching a lot of Law and Order: SVU recently, so I might need to add a concept for that)

“Joe: I uh I never picked up an illegal alien at Home Depot to take home and choke me while I touch myself.

Quagmire: Oh come on!”

There’s not a lot to do in New Brunswick, NJ when you’re 0-2 in conference, 8-7 overall. Maybe the Scarlet Knights are taking a page from the ol’ Giggidy Giggidy playbook. Could I get sued for saying that? Probably. It couldn’t be worse than the one time I actually partied at Rutgers (2001). I did karaoke to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” with a girl who would probably call herself “medium build” on EHarmony. Around midnight, I was noted to remark, “What the hell am I doing in New Brunswick?” It’s a question that can haunt a man to his grave.