Look up the term “totally useless exercise” in a thesaurus and you’ll find a reprint of Joe Lunardi’s current “Bracketology” column from ESPN.com, predicting the NCAA Field of 64, a full five months before Selection Sunday!
— Bad news Flyer Fans: by inference, Joe is saying UD is NIT-bound yet again, because he only has Xavier from the A-10 making the Big Dance. Wrong, St. Joe’s breath!

— How come hardly anyone in Columbus got Columbus Day off, but all of New York City apparently did?

— Alex Carmona is rumored to be headed to Spain to play pro ball. At least there, language will not be a barrier for the kid they call “Bimbo”.

— From the Alanis Morisette “Isn’t It Ironic?” department: former IU President Myles Brand, the guy who fired Bobby Knight, is now President of the NCAA.

— More Flyer nicknames, for the guys I missed previously:
Mark “Me and Mrs.” Jones
Nate “It’s Not Easy Being” Green
Sean “Just ‘Cause I’m From Kansas, Don’t Call Me Huck” Finn
DJ “Short For Deadly Jumper” Stelly
Ramod “Spelled Backwards is Domar” Marshall
Sammy “Lock” Smith
James “For” Cripe “Sake”
Marques “Haynes” Bennett
Greg “We Want” Kohls

— How soon before the whining emanating from the general direction of Philly starts up all over again about the A-10 tournament coming to the newly-refurbished UD Arena?

— Joe Sutherland says the sniper situation in the DC area is so bad that everyone is paranoid, looking over his or her shoulder and staying inside. I hope I’m wrong, but I have a very bad feeling this is linked somehow to 9/11.

— Call me naive (okay Swampy, you’re naive), but I believe that guys like John Edward and James Van Praagh really can communicate with people on “the other side.”

— Mike Kelly gets his 200th win as coach of the Football Flyers. As a UD grad who remembers “Kosins to the left, Kosins to the right, Kosins up the middle, punt” I never thought UD could attain such gridiron success.

— I’m sure Mike would be the first to admit that the guy who got it all started was his predecessor, Rick Carter. I met Coach Carter a few times because his kid went to the daycare center that Mrs. Swampy ran in Kettering. Is there a sadder outcome in the annals of UD Sports than the eventual suicide of Rick Carter after he left Dayton to coach at Holy Cross?

— I forgot one last nickname: Oliver “Inside Every Oyster There’s A” Purnell.

— Anybody want to rent my house for the 2004 Ryder Cup? It’s only 2½ miles from Oakland Hills CC and a steal at $15,000 for the week.

— Gee, the ALCS just isn’t the same without the Yankees in it, is it?

— Will we ever know what happened to Bison Dele, the former Piston and Chicago Bull, formerly known as Brian Williams? I’m sorry but the terms “sailing in the South Pacific” and “triple murder” should never be used in the same sentence.

— How many more days until the 2003 season starts, John R? You know a guy is really into his Flyer hoops when he counts down every day until practice starts. Good job, John!

— I don’t know if any of them are any good or not, but don’t look now — the Duquesne Dukes are loading up on guys who are 6’9″ and 6’10”. I’m old enough to remember the Nelson twins from Fox Chapel HS, a pair of bangers about that size, back when the Dukes had Norm Nixon and a feared hoops program.

— You guys are sports fans, so you tell me: is ESPN totally off-target with all of this goofy, non-sports programming like “Beg, Borrow and Steal”? To me, it’s kinda like when the Weather Channel runs documentaries. Why not stick to what you do best?

That’s it “From the Swamp.”