Columnists/Contributors

Columnists

Ray Floriani: A graduate of St. Bonaventure University and former team manager for the Brown & White,  Ray Floriani has been covering college basketball for 32 years, including 25 years with Eastern Basketball Magazine.  In addition to his contributions with College Chalktalk, Floriani is on the Basketball Times staff and regularly contributes to sites such as College Insider, Rush the Court, and Villanova by the Numbers.  A basketball official for two decades, Ray resides in Lyndhurst, NJ with his wife Karen.  Ray has also written books, such as "Harrison" (Arcadia 2003) which he co-authored with his wife Karen,  as well as "The National Invitation Tournament" (Arcadia 2006).

George "Roadie" Rodecker:   George "Roadie" Rodecker is a 20 year member of the United States Basketball Writers Association (U.S.B.W.A.) and has closely observed the amateur basketball scene world-wide for the past 21 seasons.  He's covered the NCAA Final Four, the FIBA World Championships, the Goodwill Games as well as the Portsmouth, Phoenix, Chicago and Orlando NBA Pre-Draft camps and is a regular attendee at private Pre-Draft workouts.  Roadie's also a regular at the NBA Draft Lottery as well as the NBA Draft itself.   He's reported on college basketball and specifically the NBA Draft on behalf of CBS, hoopville.com, collegeinsider.com, hoopshype.com, Sportsline, basketballtimes.com, Basketball Times Magazine, and Eastern Basketball Magazine.  Additionally, Roadie has appeared on NBA-TV, as well as making hundreds of appearances on sports talk radio stations around the US as well as internationally.  On average he attends around 125 games each season and watches an additional 100+ games on tape.  He makes his home in New York State's historic Hudson Valley where he recently completed a cooking/good living book and enjoys cooking, fine cigars, Pink Floyd & bird watching - often all at the same time!

Jerry Trickie: Jerry Trickie worked in athletic media relations on the Division I level for 14 years before becoming a freelance writer/editor and joining College Chalktalk in the summer of 2010. He spent nearly 10 years at the University of Nebraska, where he was the spokesperson for the Husker men's basketball team and was the No. 2 media relations contact for football for six years. During his career, Trickie aided  the publicity efforts for a number of players who garnered All-America status. He also won numerous district and national honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) for his publications, including the men's basketball media guide and the Husker football game day program. Previously he spent almost four years  at East Carolina University, working with the nationally ranked baseball team along with volleyball, football and men's basketball, and was an intern for one year at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.  A native of Illinois, Trickie earned a bachelor's degree from Augustana College while majoring in mathematics and economics.

Christian Marge: A Rhode Island native now residing in Mooresville, North Carolina, Christian began his journalism career covering the New England Revolution of the MLS before transitioning to a variety of other sports including college basketball. Since 2008, Marge has been a contributor to College Chalktalk, focusing his efforts in the southeast region of the Atlantic 10 footprint and on general national commentary. A graduate of Elon University, Christian now resides in Mooresville, North Carolina, and enjoys cheering on the Phoenix, as well as his beloved Boston Red Sox.

 

David Bagga:  David Bagga was born and raised in Orange County, California and played college basketball at the University of Arizona for Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson.  Bagga briefly pursued a professional career, was invited to training camps with the NBA D-League and also considered playing in Europe. Recently Bagga published The Walk-On which is a story about the journey of a walk-on through four years of Division One basketball.




Ken Cross: Ken Cross begins his first year with College Chalktalk as the columnist for Pac-10 basketball.  He began his sports media career as a reporter for the now defunct Sportsfan Radio network in 1998 and parlayed that into reporter duties for ESPN Radio, Sporting News Radio and Fox Sports Radio.  He also is a writer for Lindy's Sports Annuals and features a column on www.lindyssports.com.  His other beats include SEC/ACC football and basketball, the Carolina Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Charlotte Bobcats.



Doug Tifft: The only student columnist with College Chalktalk,  Doug Tifft attends Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and covers the Xavier Musketeers men's basketball team from his post as the sports editor of the Xavier Newswire. In addition to contributing to College Chalktalk, he has covered professional baseball, golf and auto racing, for outlets including FoxSports Ohio.  He recently completed an internship with the Orange County Register in California. Doug grew up a Boston Red Sox fan in Elmira, New York, yet somehow lived to talk about it.

Additional Contributors

Brendan Hames, Brandon Rosenthal, Mark McGiveron, Charles Costello, David Driver, Vinny Pezzimenti and Derrick Dukes

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