BEVERLY HILLS (MI) — I always knew that someday I would be able to put three years of HS and 2 semesters at UD worth of French to good use. For those of you having trouble keeping up, the title of this mess, “Pardonnez Moi” is French for pardon me. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some serious complainin’ to do:

— I didn’t want to be a ‘richard’ about it, but the guy was clearly dead wrong. In a recent installment of the “Five Questions Series” on College Chalk Talk, Duquesne Associate Head Coach Bill Barton said that his sophomore PG Eric Evans from Detroit:

a) Was a finalist for Mr. Basketball in the State of Michigan

b) Won POY honors in the City of Detroit

How did I know that Billy Boy was in error? Well, for one, I live in the Detroit area. And more importantly, I knew for a fact that UD’s Paul Williams was the answer to both a) and b), not young Mr. Evans. So as nicely as possible, I posted a comment on the site, pointing out Coach Barton’s misinformation. I felt kinda bad about it, too, because Barton used to coach my alma mater, Notre Dame HS in Fitchburg, MA. Danged if some yahoo from Duqueznee named Iron Duke didn’t post a follow up saying that I was wrong and that I should “get your facts straight before you correct others.”

True that, Iron Duke. It’s times like these where Google can be our best friend. Citing one of many articles that featured the facts, I was able to summarily end the debate.

You could have seen the whole exchange on the College Chalk Talk home page for yourself, but they recently underwent a major site upgrade and the column and comments are now lost in the ether. The new site is here:

http://collegechalktalk.com/landing/index

Looks like College Chalk Talk has dramatically expanded their coverage to be national in scope, but thankfully they still have an A-10 tab for folks like us. Good luck with the expansion, Chris Desano.

— Something tells me that BG is just as video-obsessed as Michigan’s John Beilin is, according to this piece by Andy Katz at ESPN.com:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?id=4607679

— Like many of you, I always thought that Oak Hill was just another one of those post-graduate basketball mills that seem to have sprung up all over the landscape. Wrong! As this lengthy article from Slam details, Oak Hill coach Steve Smith runs a tight ship with the emphasis on academics and no 5th year seniors allowed:

http://www.slamonline.com/online/college-hs/high-school/2009/06/at-the-top-of-the-hill/

225 kids begging for a spot on the Oak Hill squad? Looks like recently named “Student-of-the-Week” Juwan Staten chose wisely…and had to jump thru a few hoops (and not just be able to play some) in order to attend Oak Hill.

— Great High Major Scoop article on the NCAA reforms in banning “package deals” for AAU coaches, agents and other hangers-on—it’s about freakin’ time:

http://highmajorscoop.com/2009/10/ncaa-recruiting-reform-pressures-profession/

— Jeebus, Arch, you’re supposed to be one of us. Now that “The Chickster” has left the DDN building and is blogging about the Bengals for a paper in a city down to the south, I thought that would be the last of the UD/WSU nonsense. But, noooo, you had to bring it up yet again. Thanks for nothing:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/throughthearch/entries/2009/11/05/too_bad_raiders_and_flyers_won.html

— Speaking of newspapers, why does every single freakin’ one of them have to have an annoying pop-up on their home page? I know they need the income, but give us a break, will ya?

— Absolutely worst pop-up ads on the net? The young lovelies with suggestive screen names who somehow all seem to live in nearby Bloomfield Hills, MI that appear when I click on channelsurfing.net’s site. Amazingly enuf, when visiting the Elder Swampette in Chicago this weekend, they all managed to follow me there:

http://www.channelsurfing.net/

— I’m with Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe: NFW that juicer Mark McGwire should be allowed anywhere near MLB:

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/2009/11/01/allowing_mcgwire_back_is_a_cardinal_sin_by_selig/

— As a fan of the NBA, I’m glad that Random House showed some backbone and refused to print the tattletale book by crooked ref Tim Donaghy:

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/basketball/other_nba/view/20091029nba_to_investigate_new_accusations_by_tim_donaghy/

— Yet another new Flyer blog has appeared on the intrawebs:

http://flyerfaithful.blogspot.com/

Welcome to the neighborhood, Tyler!

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: [email protected]