Idle Thoughts, while waiting for warmth, March Madness and for John Sterling’s first “it is high, it is far, it is gone” of 2024:

• Dr. Idle, Dr. I to his close friends, wonders if half the people wringing their hands over what appears to be the demise of Sports Illustrated actually still subscribe to the magazine.

Guessing that if they did, SI would be just fine.

But that’s the deal now. Nobody reads newspapers or magazines anymore, laments their death on social media and then jumps right back on a phone to procure information from TikTok.

• Trivia: Who is the Boston Celtics’ single-season leader for made 3-pointers? (Answer below).

• Public service announcement: Dr. I has his own digital subscription to The Day. It’s $20 per month. Most of you spend more than that in a week at Dunkin’.

This is mentioned because Dr. I often posts columns to Facebook and encounters a whiny Walter who can’t read it because a subscription is required. It’s $5 a week, folks. You know. About the cost of a Venti Caramel Macchiato Grande Chestnut Praline Frappuccino La Dolce Vita at Starbucks.

• Dr. I is puzzled as to why Geno Auriemma felt the need to clarify his recent comments on the transfer portal and NIL. He was spot on.

Sayeth Geno: “This is about how you can just walk out any time you want. How do you coach in an environment where the players feel like they owe you nothing and that you owe them everything? … You’ve got a player that’s really, really, really good and you just coached the hell out of them and made them who they are — it happened to Seton Hall last year — and that kid goes, ‘Yeah, I think I can make more money somewhere else.’ OK, well you wouldn’t have been this good if it wasn’t for your coaching staff you have right now.”

Auriemma alluded to Lauren Park-Lane, a three-time All-Big East guard, who averaged 21 points per game last year at Seton Hall. She transferred to Mississippi State in the offseason.

“Whewww,” Park-Lane wrote on X in response. “I still have eligibility left so imma just save my comments. To say I left MY 4 year university for money is reckless.”

Note to Ms. Park-Lane: Poor grammar aside, do you think we’re all gullible enough to think you left Seton Hall because Starkville, Miss., is lovely this time of year?

• That’ll teach Dave Sugrue to be neighborly.

Imagine: The man oversees New London’s greatest resource, Ocean Beach, for decades. Has never said no to anyone or any group. And then gets carved by some Nosy Nancy who is somehow aggrieved by a catamaran and some city councilors who haven’t accomplished a tenth of the things Sugrue has done for the city.

Newspaper columnists and elected officials don’t always agree. But it is the responsibility of both parties to understand the city’s people and their contributions. The failure to treat Sugrue with the respect he’s earned — regardless of whether they agreed with his actions — ought to call into question how many of our city councilors understand New London at all.

• Here’s a good one: Coast Guard men’s basketball player Trevor Parks made a 3-pointer at the buzzer last week to lift the Bears past Wheaton.

Twenty-two years ago to that day, Sam Cheung hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer as Coast Guard defeated … Wheaton.

• Congrats to Dr. I favorite Dan Driscoll of Waterford, recently named a second team pick to the D3baseball.com Preseason All-America team.

Driscoll, a junior left-hander at Eastern Connecticut, started his career at Mitchell. Dr. I predicts his college career won’t end until he’s pitching at a Division I school somewhere.

• Dr. I tends to agree with the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick, who wondered aloud the other day if the advertisement that appeared for treatment of erectile dysfunction missed its target audience.

It aired during the U.S.-Sweden Under-18 women’s hockey game on the NHL Network.

• A shakeup atop the ECC standings this week.

Ledyard has overtaken Waterford for best basketball scorers’ table.

Seems the Colonels have three people (Glenney, Hepburn, Turner) doing the work that requires four in Waterford.

• Mad props to Serenity Lancaster, who eclipsed 1,000 career points (as a junior) the other night at New London High.

Big Ren isn’t merely a future Division I player, but carries a sense of humor like the American Express Card: She never leaves home without it.

• RIP to Joe Giuliotti, a former longtime sports reporter with the Boston Herald.

Joe was very accommodating to Dr. I, then a college-aged scribe who would pop up occasionally at Boston-area sporting events, especially BC hockey games.

• Trivia answer: Isaiah Thomas made 245 3s in the 2016-17 season. (Jayson Tatum made 240 last year).

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro