College Hoops Chat

Let me explain why I started this College Hoops Chat website and radio show.

I started watching college basketball when I was 11 in the 5th Grade. It was love at first sight. I actually had the incredible luck to watch the historic Notre Dame upset over UCLA 71-70 on January 19, 1974 to break UCLA’s 88 game win streak – at a time when there were not many college basketball games shown on network TV. By the following year, I just kept the TV on after the morning cartoons and went right into college basketball on NBC (Dick Enberg was a fabulous announcer).

Of course, while watching college basketball in those first few seasons, I was convinced I would play college basketball someday. However, my dreams were crushed after being cut from the Saints John & Paul 5th-6th grade CYO basketball team. After that, I just enjoyed playing intramurals in high school and college while watching as much college and pro basketball as possible. I adopted the Marquette Warriors as my team in 1976 because I thought Butch Lee and Bo Ellis were terrific, and they had two Westchester kids on the team, Earl Tatum from Mt. Vernon and Bernard Toone from Yonkers. This became one of my all-time great sports decisions because Marquette won the National Championship the following year under the colorful and legendary coach Al McGuire.

In the late 1970s, I became a fan of St. John’s because it was the best local Catholic college that was usually on TV. And at the same time, I was also rooting for my hometown Iona College Gaels as Jim Valvano was turning them into a powerhouse. Plus, I went to Iona Prep. For the past 40 years, I’m still cheering for St. John’s and Iona hoops by watching them on TV whenever possible and attending games.

I was in high school when the NCAA Tournament began to grow in popularity and many of the games started to be shown on TV. Since high school, I’ve been glued to the TV for the Big Dance every year. I will always remember the 1979 season when I got to see to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson play against each other in the Final 4. But I really thought I died and went to heaven in my senior year at Iona Prep when we got cable-TV with ESPN and I could now watch games on weeknights – this was not helpful to my grades though. I will never forget the early years of the Big East, some of the best college basketball I have ever seen.

When I picked my college, of course it had to be a basketball school, and off I went to St. Bonaventure (unfortunately, I loved it too much and lasted just one year rooting for the Bonnies). But my love for college basketball never changed, and I watch as many games as possible every season for over four decades. And, of course, I greatly enjoy doing my brackets every year for the NCAA Tournament.

So I think it’s now clear why I started this blog. College hoops has been a big part of my life since I was a kid. In the coming years, I look forward to spending more time chatting about college hoops with old and new friends. We will be covering college basketball across the nation, but I admit there will be a bias for a few teams. You will hear a lot about Iona, St. John’s, St. Bonaventure, Buffalo (where I went to law school), South Carolina (my son is a Gamecock), and since we have a house in North Carolina, we’ll keep an eye on North Carolina, NC State and UNC Wilmington (where our house is).

Thanks for reading this introductory post. Please follow the College Hoops Chat blog, check out our Podcasts and listen to my WVOX radio show, and most importantly, please join in the discussion – we want to hear your thoughts about college basketball!