Columnists: Lenn Robbins

Latest Columns

• Griner's ordeal at Baylor shows homophobia still prevalent in sports

  The battle against homophobia took a giant step forward recently when Jason Collins came out — the first openly gay American male professional athlete to do so while still in the game. It was courageous. It was needed....   May 20, 2013

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• Troubled Harrison must show he’s changed to return to SJU

  St. John’s coach Steve Lavin had lunch with suspended star D’Angelo Harrison this week. Red Storm fans can only hope it doesn’t turn out to be a last supper. Lavin suspended Harrison, the mercurial and petulant combo...   May 18, 2013

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• Jordan’s degree flap another bungle for beleaguered Rutgers

  With every passing fiasco the one thing we know Rutgers has gotten right is that the university’s primary color is scarlet. After Rutgers fired its last men’s basketball coach months after knowing Mike Rice had hurled...   May 11, 2013

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• Robbins' first-round rewind

  1. Chiefs  Eric Fisher, OT, Central Michigan - As college football ponders a split to 65 elite BCS schools, a mighty 6-foot-7 Chippewa gives Alex Smith protection. 2. Jaguars  Luke Joeckel, OT, Texas A&M - Let the...   April 26, 2013

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• As Pitinos celebrate, coach honors sister-in-law with HOF memento

  ATLANTA — As Rick Pitino was circling the area around the basket in front of the Louisville bench, where the Cardinals were about to cut down the nets after Monday night’s thrilling NCAA championship victory over...   April 10, 2013

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• Highs and lows of the NCAA tournament -- where does Pitino's tattoo fall

  ATLANTA - We'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank Louisville and Michigan for leaving us with the memory of a riveting championship game. Because until the Cardinals edged the Wolverines 82-76 Monday...   April 09, 2013

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• Hurley only option to save Rutgers hoops after Rice firing

  Rutgers University stands before the college sports world today naked and humiliated, its head basketball coach fired after a stunningly brutal video was aired showing Mike Rice physically and verbally abusing players....   April 04, 2013

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• Gruesome injury changes feelings about No. 1 Louisville

  The No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament is the beneficiary of bountiful blessings. Despite Rick Pitino’s assertion the Midwest Region was the “Death Bracket,” Louisville got to play two quasi home games in Lexington, Ky.,...   April 02, 2013

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• Unpredictable Final 4 full of promise

  Do you remember when this all started, when you looked at the NCAA Tournament draw two weeks ago and gasped, “This thing is wide open!”?  It might have been the only time in the last two weeks you were correct.  The...   April 01, 2013

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• More relaxed Boeheim has team in the zone

  WASHINGTON — Chuckles the Clown is coming to Atlanta. He’ll be wearing a Jim Boeheim mask, but feel free to walk right up to him and squeeze his nose. It might honk, shoot water, who knows.  A fan sitting right behind...   March 31, 2013

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• Southerland taking opponents to school

  WASHINGTON — James Southerland III came clean yesterday, laid his soul bare for the first time since he sat for six games in January while his integrity was questioned.  The NCAA had questions about a term paper...   March 30, 2013

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• Boeheim’s 2-3 zone claims another victim

  WASHINGTON — For 37 years, long before there was a shot clock in college basketball or a Big East Conference or a Carrier Dome, Jim Boeheim has been a constant on the Syracuse bench, a griping, grimacing, passionate...   March 29, 2013

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• Crusty Boeheim still going strong on Syracuse sideline

  WASHINGTON — Jim Boeheim was a big-time basketball star at Lyons High (N.Y.) — the biggest of fish in a small-town pond. After a 30-point performance as a sophomore, Boeheim found himself waiting to get a soda and snack...   March 28, 2013

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• Double-digit seeds crash Sweet 16 party

  Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall summed up the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament by saying, “The improbable is happening this year.”  And that was before Florida Gulf Coast University upset San Diego State to...   March 25, 2013

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• McKillop a master at Davidson

  LEXINGTON, Ky. — The David of college basketball is here — here and fearless.  Davidson does not see the No. 14 seed in front of its name and No. 3 in front of Marquette on its NCAA Tournament bracket line.  It sees...   March 21, 2013

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• Louisville’s Smith, St. Louis among those with extra motivation

  Any website or loud-mouthed office jerk can give the statistics and site records of coaches in NCAA Tournament play or guarantee a No. 16 seed will upset a No. 1 this year. But there are stories behind the stats that...   March 20, 2013

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• Louisville our bracket besters

  Before you hand in your bracket, do yourself a favor and follow one of the newer trends in college basketball:  Coaches now use timeouts when they think the opposition is about to go on a run or when they are...   March 19, 2013

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• Kentucky, Maryland keeping Barclays in their future

  Any college hoops junkie in the metropolitan area has got to feel like he or she hit Lotto this week.  One train ride could get you from the Big East Tournament in Manhattan to the Atlantic 10 Tournament in Brooklyn. ...   March 16, 2013

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• Jack Curran / 1930-2013: More than a successful coach

  Jack Curran died Wednesday night doing what he loved best — watching one of the two sports he had a lifetime love affair with.  Sitting in his favorite chair in his Rye home, the Big East Tournament on television, the...   March 15, 2013

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• Garden draws rave reviews as NCAA tourney site

  If you think it’s going to be absolutely bonkers in the Garden tonight, when Georgetown and Syracuse meet for the last time in the Big East Tournament, imagine the scene next season when the Hoyas and Orange might meet...   March 15, 2013

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• Louisville, Pitino will run away with crown

  The last time Rick Pitino had a slice of humble pie it was delivered through his umbilical cord. That’s a compliment. Pitino is a New Yorker to the core — cocky, opinionated, brash. And his teams play that way. His...   March 12, 2013

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• Big East, proud collegiate hoops hotbed, NOT dead at 34

  Ever since my friend Chris Calhoun, a literary agent, gave me the book “52 McGs,” I have developed a somewhat macabre fascination with reading obituaries.  And for the life of me I don’t recall seeing any obit...   March 11, 2013

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• City game brings hope to many

  Basketball, the city game, has always struck me as being a cathartic sport. The drumming beat of a basketball being dribbled. The calming swish of a basketball licking the nets.  A player can lose himself for hours in a...   March 09, 2013

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• Fights, suspensions tarnishing St. John’s image

  We’re quickly closing in on an era when friends won’t ask friends about their spouses, or jobs or children.  They will ask, “How’s your brand doing?”  It’s all about branding these days. It’s why models also want to be...   March 07, 2013

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• New Big East heavenly for hoops fans

  PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When you come off I-95 at exit 21, the service road sign reads Dave Gavitt Way, which couldn’t be more appropriate.  If ever there was a man dedicated to the service of college basketball, to...   March 04, 2013

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• St. John’s among teams feeling March anxiety

  Each college basketball season begins in a kind of fog, with March shrouded like the supports on the George Washington Bridge. As the weeks unfold and teams find themselves, the view gets clearer. We know, or can...   March 03, 2013

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• St. John's Lavin prepared to take heat for bold move

  Steve Lavin has a Hollywood smile, a one-liner for every booster in the room and a recruiting pitch smoother than a 30-year-old bottle of single malt scotch.  But he also has guts a fighter pilot would envy.  With three...   March 02, 2013

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• Time for NCAA to let Sanchez live dream of playing at St. John’s

  If you read Orlando Sanchez’s letter to the NCAA, the one in which he painstakingly lays out a life devoid of so many of the comforts we take for granted — such as not knowing if there was enough money to keep the...   February 25, 2013

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• Don’t sleep on Butler, Valparaiso

  The march to madness is sweeping the nation with a frantic fervor. Call this year’s Big Dance frenzy “Footloose,” because almost any team that makes the Field of 68 thinks it can step out, rise up, and cut down the nets...   February 23, 2013

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• Mullin: I can take Harrison

  Chris Mullin has a message for D’Angelo Harrison: Game on.  Anywhere. Anytime.  And not just a game of HORSE. Oh no, Mullin, 49, the greatest player ever to wear a St. John’s jersey, is in plenty good shape to take on...   February 18, 2013

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