Craig Esherick might no longer be the coach of the Georgetown men’s basketball team but his spirit continues to haunt them in light of the first back-to-back losses of the season. The first was understandable, losing to Notre Dame at South Bend (notoriously difficult for visitors). But last night’s loss to struggling St. John’s was inexcusable. The Hoyas were outrebounded 39-23, shot a meager 19 percent from beyond the arc, and trailed at halftime, 45-29. The defeat gave the Red Storm only its third conference win of the year. Meanwhile, the Hoyas remain at 16-8, 8-5 in the Big East–just two games away from the magical 10-conference-wins threshold. Even assuming Georgetown beats Providence at home, the team will either have to beat No. 25 Villanova at home or No. 18 Connecticut away. (Georgetown already beat the Wildcats once, at Villanova.) Can it be done? In the immortal words of Rocco Lampone, “Difficult, but not impossible.”

Most of the tension this late in the season stems from the Esherick legacy: Last year, under Craig Esherick’s tutelage, Georgetown lost 13 of its remaining 15 games, scarring fans like myself for life. We now presume the worst. That the meltdown has begun. And come March, we’ll be tuning in to ESPN +Plus for the NIT. But despite a good number of the players being Esherick recruits, the coach is not. John Thompson III has spent the bulk of his time rewiring the older players and, more important, building a solid foundation for the younger ones. (The team itself is comprised mostly of 19-year-olds.)

So despite some chatter that the season is over, that Big East rookie of the year (my prediction) Jeff Green has hit the “freshman wall,” and, as one friend put it, “the Georgetown team we all know and love is back,” it is far from over. The team has two weeks to prove they aren’t the same head-cases from a year ago. Next Sunday against Villanova would be a good start.

Don’t front; you love the Grambo. Here’s a hard-hitting interview with the genius behind whatevs.org:

Q: Whose nipple slip would make your year?

GRAMBO: I would authorize my closest family members to sign a DNR if I had glimpsed l’areola de Bynes.

Bovs.

Two observations from my favorite weekly:

(1) Nicholas Lemann’s piece marks what, I believe, is the New Yorker‘s first use of the abbreviation “M.S.M.” For those geeks obsessed with house style, note that the mavens at the New Yorker have decided to include periods.

(2) Next to David Denby’s fine, if slightly precious, review of Downfall is an ad for a book titled Where Willy Went. The caption reads: “Meet Willy, the Big Story of a Little Sperm.” No preschool classroom should be without a copy.

Not to be lost in the midst of Social Security reform and sanctions against Syria is a lobbying effort to get a free trade agreement for New Zealand. With all the controversy over China and the WTO, this one seems like a no-brainer: New Zealand agriculture isn’t government-sponsored and farmers haven’t received subsidies for 15 years now (unlike, say, the French). And we’re not just talking Kiwis either: New Zealand is a meat-lover’s paradise. At the moment, only 3 percent of New Zealand beef makes its way to U.S. restaurants and butcheries. This could change with an FTA, providing American consumers with better choices than suspect Canadian beef and astronomically priced Wagyu from Japan. There is no quota on lamb, and a good thing at that. New Zealand lamb is arguably the best in the world (something about the diet) and may one day eclipse Kobe beef as the must-have for gourmands. I recently had the pleasure of sampling some New Zealand lamb chops at the launch party for the bipartisan Friends of New Zealand Congressional Caucus on Capitol Hill. “Succulent” and “falling-off-the-bone” are the two words that came to mind as I sank my teeth into the chops. This was followed by generous servings of New Zealand wines. Though the whites dominate the countryside, the reds, including a Seifred Malbec, were exquisite. When a free trade agreement is passed, wine lovers and carnivores alike will have much to rejoice over.

(No, I have not been paid by the government of New Zealand for this endorsement.)

Of course I’m talking about Elisabeth Rohm’s departure from Law & Order.

Law & Order is perfect episodic television. You can tune in whenever you want; there are no continuing plot lines to keep up with. The writing is fairly smart and the acting is generally top shelf. Few episodes go by without my being dazzled by a 30-second walk-on performance by some New York stage actor playing a building superintendent or a jilted girlfriend. If you want to see quality acting on a regular basis, Law & Order has been the place to go for 15 years.

So you can imagine how difficult the last four years have been with the wooden, super-ennunciating Rohm (when you catch here on the TNT re-runs, listen to her “t”‘s) riding shotgun with Sam Waterston, the finest working actor on network television. There have been moments when Rohm’s inert obliviousness have been so maddening that I was sure Waterston was going to beat her to death with his eyebrows.

But then Rohm suddenly departed a few weeks ago in a blaze of sapphic idiocy. Her replacement is soapster Annie Parisse, whom I’m warming to already.

So in celebration, I invite readers (and Skinner) to send their nominations for the Law & Order All-Star Squad. I’m thinking of regular cast members, but if you have a special defense attorney or recurring guest star, nominate them, too. To get things started, here’s my starting dream team:

Dianne Wiest

Sam Waterston

Angie Harmon

and

S. Epatha Merkerson

Dennis Farina

George Dzundza

Let the festivities begin. As Jar-Jar Binks would say, Weesa free!

In his latest book the Pope talks about attempt on his life made by Ali Agca in 1981. This wire story has details. The Pope John Paul II has spent some time with his would-be assassin:

“During their talk, Agca grew interested in the secret of Fatima, the pope wrote.

“And a very curious thing . . . this unrest led him to the issue of religion. He asked how it really is with this Fatima mystery. What is it based on? That was his main point of his interest, this is what he most of all wanted to find out,” the pope says.

The pope went on: “Ali Agca–as I believe–understood, that above his power, the power of shooting and killing there is a greater power. He began looking for it. I wish for him that he finds it.”

Agca was extradited to Turkey after serving almost 20 years for the shooting and remains imprisoned for other crimes. During John Paul’s 10-day hospitalization this month for breathing problems and flu, Agca wished the 84-year-old pontiff well.

It’s a strange, wonderful world we live in.

I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but didn’t Andrew Sullivan promise he was going to stop blogging? In a post from yesterday, Sullivan tells us that he’s a libertarian in favor legalized recreational drug use “and what consenting adults do in private,” but he “draws the line” at the use of crystal meth.

Why is that? Because crystal meth is particularly harmful to people with HIV. In other words, Sullivan’s political convictions are written in stone until they bump up against an issue he personally cares about.

How can a magazine be like a forgetful husband? The new issue of the New Republic celebrates its 90th anniversary. But neither this week nor this month in fact marks the opinion journal’s ninetieth year. This becomes clear as one reads, in the Notebook feature, a long quote from the first issue. Publication date: November 7, 1914. So the anniversary was actually four months ago.