Here Comes Your Man

It was a wait so long

With the Paradise Jam on tap for this weekend, the Xavier basketball season has officially started. The team lost to Gonzaga and the hated Adam Morrison last year in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and this year returns all of its starters while adding former McDonald's All-American Oklahoma transfer Drew Lavender. A strong freshman recruiting class gives the team extra depth, and the team's best player is named Stanley Burrell. In case you didn't know, that is also Hammer's real name. You can't touch that. (Xavier will also have Charles Bronson on their roster next year; this team is badass)

I get most of my Musketeer related news from my father; an alum of the school who hangs out around the O'Connor Sports Center a couple of times a week. This week we talked about the team's 79-46 opening win over Coastal Carolina. Apparently everybody looked good, but the pops wasn't thrilled with the play of Drew Lavender, the new point guard everyone has been drooling over. Let me give you some back story here. Last year, X's point guard, Dedrick Finn, was a terrible player and teammate who somehow managed to get himself embroiled in a custody battle over a dog and then got kicked off the team for good right before the conference tournament. Enter Johhny Wolf:


Johnny was a very good basketball player at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati. His father was a great tennis player who my father apparenly runs into around town. Johnny did a fantastic job as a freshman of taking over a struggling team and putting them in a position to win basketball games. And win basketball games they did. Four in a row in the A-10 tournament in fact. But this year, Johnny's on the bench. And this really pisses of my dad.

Everybody's got their thing. For me, it's The Smiths and Morrissey. For Matt Ufford, it's cats wearing clothes. For Mark Foley, it's congressional pages. For my Dad, it's white point guards. He loves em'. He just can't help himself. Even if they're walk-ons, he still finds ways to demand that they should get more playing time. In the late nineties, there was this guy Pat Kelsey (who was another local kid, from Elder I think) on the Muskies roster. He got some PT, but the teams he was playing on were loaded with talent (James Posey used to come off the bench in 97). He was the co-captain and voted "most inspirational" player for 96 and 98. This was not good enough for my dad. Every time X lost a game, it was "I just don't get why Skip didn't put Kelsey in there. I mean, he can really shoot."

I completely understand where this is coming from. My dad loves underdogs. And since he's white, he usually loves white underdogs. And since he's only 5' 9", the only guys he can watch play basketball that remind him of himself are back-up white point guards. This is fine. I just am not looking forward to hearing constant criticism of Drew Lavender this year, juxtaposed with what-would-Johnny-have-done revisionism.

On a completely different topic, what's up with Keke Okerake singing all the songs for Bloc Party?


I hear Gordon Moakes (far right) has an awesome voice. They really ought to give him a chance.