Hardwoods odyssey: A college game a night for 74 days part of life-changing dream for one-time Tiger standout

Jan. 13—For Coleman Crawley, it's a gamble on his passion.

A big gamble — he gave up his day job to do it.

Crawley, a longtime basketball junkie who played the sport through his high school days at Fort Gibson then translated his passion into a podcast, set off Dec. 28 on a cross-country tour to see what will average out as one mid- or low-major men's college basketball game per night until the NCAA's Selection Sunday in March.

There's an end game.

He wants a job at Barstool Sports, a popular digital media company based in New York City.

The University of Oklahoma grad who majored in finance and accounting and worked in sales for an employee benefits consulting firm decided his passion was on the hardwoods.

As far back as the 2020-21 season, he had his own podcast with a small following. That year, the NCAA tournament was canceled a week prior to it starting due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he decided with the research he'd done he would put together a bracket based on what if there had been a tournament.

"That got me to thinking I would love covering college basketball for a living," he said. "I was putting my time into this podcast doing picks, predictions and covering games. I had no journalism background, no sports broadcasting background, only this ridiculous passion for the game and a high-level understanding of it."

A couple years in he came to the realization that he needed to do something big.

The first gamble was joining his wife Emiley Sexton Crawley on her summer work trip to New York City. He went to Barstool Sports headquarters and hung out, hoping to meet someone on the inside.

"I hung out like a homeless person waiting for someone to walk down," he said.

After a few hours Barstool's Dan "Big Cat" Katz came down.

"I followed him a couple blocks and get up to him and asked if he needed a personal college basketball handicapper. He laughed and said 'I guess we can all use help, what's your Twitter handle?"

Meanwhile, to start the season, Crawley's picks were 23-10 and after a really good night going 4-1, he received a request from Big Cat to start sending him his picks.

Thus, the seeds were planted for the wild idea of traveling the country.

"Every year there's a Cinderella that makes a deep run in the tournament from conferences that don't get a lot of coverage," Coleman said. "Just on the wagering aspect alone there's not a lot of activity there for Vegas to put their focus there."

He got a leave through Jan. 16 from his job, at which point he'd have to decide if he was going further or retaining his employment. But his wife had to sign off on it.

Emiley, a Muskogee High grad, was sold on the originality of the idea.

"I work in social media marketing and I knew that a lot of the content on these platforms can be oversaturated, but his idea in particular I knew was unique enough that he could pursue it and make it work," she said.

Using Ken Pomeroy's KenPom rankings and predictions, Coleman charted a map of games he'd follow and handicap, combining that with the use of a binder he built of last year's attendance figures for each team. The idea was not only to share his assessments, but to be seen in those small crowds and have good video material.

"No one knows who I am," he said. "So I want to get a seat around the bench or around the goal and just cheer like crazy."

Coleman's early journeys — 19 games in 16 days watching teams from 10 conferences so far — took him back to the Big Apple and another opportunity to hang out at Barstool.

"Since I had Big Cat on Twitter I messaged him to let him know I was down here and wanted to know what he thought, whether I was making any progress, is there something you've liked, am I moving toward that job I want?"

No openings right now, he said they told him.

Ten minutes later Big Cat messaged him back, inviting him up for a "Barstool Yak" show segment that involved making a three-minute elevator pitch of an idea. At the end they spun a wheel, part of a the typical routine and they had "hired" as an option on the wheel.

It landed there.

And for a moment....

"I didn't want to get my hopes up, but with everyone's reaction with the wheel I was hoping they would say yes," he said. "They didn't, but I got 45 minutes to an hour in there chatting it up with everyone, got to know them, and that was really cool."

His Twitter account, @SharpshotSelect, skyrocketed from a couple thousand to 13,300 followers after that show.

The measure of that impact was felt at Thursday's Southern Miss-Marshall game, which more or less went against his strategy of being a big fish in a small pond. Seating in his target places was tough. He worked his way to the Marshall student section.

"I asked out loud 'any of you guys follow the Barstool app?' and one guy said 'yeah I saw you on there. Come sit by us,'"

More exposure, more followers.

It's gone so well, he quit his job — but at the same time picked up a contract job with someone he met through his trips to Colgate games. In short, it deals with basketball analytics regarding shots by individual players, the data of which started off being sold to coaches but has evolved into an additional market with the gambling industry.

"I knew when it came up on Jan. 16 I was making too much headway that I couldn't look back," Coleman said. "It helped that this gig fits in perfectly with what I'm doing in terms of analysis."

So far, who is on his Cinderella list?

—Colgate. "The way they move the basketball and how elite they shoot from 3," he said.

—Marshall: "Dan D'Antoni (brother of former NBA coach Mike D'Antoni) has an offense that's ridiculous. So many weapons. Taevion Kinsey (a 6-foot-5 guard) will be a pro."

—Dayton: "DaRon Holmes II (6-10 forward). Once he gets healthy they'll be special out of the Atlantic 10."

—Iona: "Rick Pitino (former Kentucky, Louisville and NBA coach) has got it going there."

—Bradley: "Elite defense, so much so that they don't have to score as many points to win games."

But stay tuned.

HIs journey continues. and the dream lives.