Jeremy Ripley is the hoops world’s Rodney Whitaker. A self-acknowledged roundball zealot, the native Midwesterner navigates the basketball world’s cultural backwaters with feverish monomania. Christened “Cheesecake” (sweet and luscious on the release, obviously) by an astute Harlemite, Ripley fancies the original Doctor J as more contemporary saint than pious YMCA instructor, and considers Wendell Ladner, the Mapp Brothers, Chris Herren, “Fly” Williams, Pistol Maravich, and Victor The Wrestling Bear among his disciples. Ripley would also like everyone to know that he doesn’t need grass--he can sky on himself.