The GLOBAL PHENOMENON Also Known As Casual Hoya

Well this is going to be awkward.  We are officially 44.4% through the Big East season and we here at Casual Hoya thought it would be a good time to stop and give our readers a little bit of background on the Global Phenomenon that has become this blog, as well as give a special shoutout to all of your bosses for not monitoring which sites you frequent while apparently working.  This also happens to be the time of the year our overlords at SB Nation provide us with annual statistics, most of which mean nothing since the blog hasn't been around for a full year.

The blog started in March 2009, as an alternative to some already established Hoyas websites that seem to view the world of Georgetown Hoyas hoops as some sort of Utopian Universe where everything is warm and fuzzy and children walk around saving puppies and eating cotton candy.  We here at Casual Hoya would certainly like to live in such a Universe, but realize the harsh reality that is life with a team that has problems, a school that has issues, and a world in which gambling and discussions of point spreads is often more interesting than how many seats the Republicans have in the Senate, and certainly more important that talking about how the former members of the team are such great kids and how much we wish them well.

CasualHoya.com was launched during the Big East Tournament, and one day prior to our NCAA tourney hopes being violently destroyed by Nikita and his errant three point attempt.  Looking back, we probably should have taken that as a hint, but our young and creative minds yearned for more.  So left with nothing to write about except our embarrassing and well-deserved loss to Baylor, we entered the summer completely over our heads and out of ideas.  Seriously, we wrote about Latavious Williams nearly 20 times during that summer.  Luckily a few of you idiots cherished commenters found your way here and helped get us through those dark times.

When the season started, we added on a few new fresh faces to write for the blog and also received news from the Georgetown Athletic Department that they no longer felt comfortable issuing us press passes, mainly because of this gem written months earlier.  They suck by the way.

That brings us to now, where the utter garbage we have written has been linked across the Internets, with stories picked up by ESPN, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports. In addition, we have amassed a GLOBAL following, with loyal Hoya fans across the whole wide world logging in from every corner of the planet (special casual shout-out to our reader from Gabrone, Botswana).

Now some facts to tickle your fancy:

• We have over 300 members who have provided over 4,500 comments and fan posts
• We are averaging over 10,000 visitors a week and nearly 25,000 page views
• Based on our latest quarterly growth rate, more people will visit Casual Hoya by September 2012 than are actually alive.  Numbers don't lie.
• We'll get some more data later on frequent commenters, so we can give all the people who read and are too pussy to comment a chance to catch up

So all this leads up to the inevitable thanks to everyone reading, commenting and forwarding on our crap.  I'd love to say something awful like without you, this wouldn't be possible but that's not really true, in fact it would be perfectly possible to continue doing what we are doing without you.  But your comments and interaction certainly make this more entertaining.  

This week also officially marks the beginning of Grenade Week, which draws parallels from ESPN's Rivalry Week but is a lot more crude, rude and degrading.  It might also have something to do with that fact we play the Axis of Evil in Cuse and Duke this week.  Prepare yourselves for an unbearable amount of whining, crying and complaining from the opposing benches.  Get excited, this is where the fun begins.

Good talk.