Welcome... to the Monkey House

My primary rooting interest in College Basketball has undoubtedly the most psychedelically frightening mascot in all of sports.

Let's face it. I am not a sane man. That's the first thing I need to get out of the way, as it were, before we get rolling here.

Of course, my sanity or lack thereof is only one of the Cardinal Precepts of... uh, Cardinal Precepts. The following represents my gesture in the direction of Ground Rules, Frequently Unasked Because They're So Unbelievably Obvious Questions, and what have you. Copyright whenever the hell I get around to it, may be changed at any time for any reason or no reason without notifying any or all reader(s-- I use the parenthesis deliberately), etc etc etc.

1. I'm a fan of Stanford Basketball.

You may have noticed this, thanks to the unbelievably clever title above. The primary purpose of this blog will be to follow the Stanford basketball team through its trials and tribulations in what should be a wild 2007-8 season-- and perhaps beyond.

2. I am not a Stanford alum.

Those of you who plugged "Cardinal rule, Bears drool" into Google and scrolled down to result #4353657 to find this are not going to find this blog particularly appealing. Frankly, I'm a fan of Cal basketball as well, and hopefully I'll find time to post some thoughts on Ben Braun's squad during the season as well. I'm actually something of an apologist for the entire Pac-10 conference, with the debatable exception of USC. And even they'll earn some grudging respect from me when they deserve it.

My own alma mater is Pomona College of Claremont, CA-- a fine school in all respects, but not exactly a basketball powerhouse. In the one game that I can recall that we played against a Division 1 opponent during my time there, we lost to UC Irvine 83-28. We were, if you'll pardon the pun, Eaten like Ants. So I pretty much still root for my hometown (ish) teams.

3. I am an admirer of stat geeks, without actually being one myself.

I'm a huge fan of advanced statistical analysis of sports. When this blog rolls around to baseball season, there may be a few posts along those lines. But I'm thoroughly ignorant of Excel's mathematical functions, couldn't find a standard deviation if my life depended upon it, and have no idea what the actual formula for VORP in baseball is, much less how to calculate it.

So while I plan to steal some topical notions from Ken Pomeroy and a few of the other excellent basketball analysts out there on today's Web (most notably the idea of tempo-adjusted statistics), don't expect massive reams of data. I don't have either the patience or the computer skills for it.

4. Writing-wise, what you see is pretty much what you get.

If I had to pick four words to describe my own style, they would be wry, cynical, adverbial and pun-tastic. If the reader is looking for the next A. Bartlett Giamatti, writing lyrical odes to the beauty of sport and the poetry of motion, he/she is once again advised to look elsewhere. I was born on National Grouch Day. (No joke. Look it up.) Rarely has a made-up semi-serious "holiday" been so apt.

5. Flames, abuse, vitriol and other hydrogen-ion-generating materials (that's "acids", for the non-chemically inclined) are welcome, but send them by email.

While I'll be more than happy (tickled pink, actually) to have an argument out in the comments, if it's purely insulting, it ain't staying. Sorry. Chalk it up to my inflated sense of self-worth, if you so desire.

I think that about covers things for now. Next time on Cardinal Precepts: we examine the team's season-opening tournament (the Basketball Travellers' Classic, which apparently involves a bunch of other cruddy teams Travelling to play at Maples) and meet our cast of characters.