BEVERLY HILLS (MI) — It was nice for Archie and the Flyboys to get a win on the road vs. the Fordham Rams on Saturday to end their four game losing skein. As members of the Flyer Faithful, we were all charged with doing our small parts to make sure that the streak didn’t extend to five. Normally, that means changing things up; doing stuff differently; altering our routines or wearing different Flyer garb in order to morph the karma, vibe, juju or whatever you want to call it, from bad to good.

I could have sworn that the game in the Bronx was a nighttime affair, but when I discovered Saturday morning that it was a 1:00PM tip, I knew what I had to do. Saturday afternoons I have access to a HS gym at that time and usually go shoot hoops for an hour and a half while the softball team, coached by a guy I know, works on hitting in the batting cage behind a screen at the other end of the floor. I would go to the gym as I normally do, come home and catch the end of the Flyer roadie and thus do my small part in reversing the curse and assuring a UD victory.

I turned on the web feed just as Josh Parker hit a three pointer right before the under eight minute media timeout to give UD a three point lead. When it comes to “Slump Busting” in the dating world, one strategy is indelicately referred to as “going ugly early” and it appears that is exactly what the Flyers did. From reading the game thread on UD Pride, I learned that from the outset Archie’s guys couldn’t throw the ball in the East River from the Brooklyn Bridge. Glad I missed that. It also appears that WHIO had its usual trouble with the video feed. I’m not sorry to have missed the kvetching about that, either. The video stream I got featured the announcers from the Fordham campus radio station and one of them quickly got on my nerves by referring to our alma mater as “Day-un” rather than bothering to pronounce the ‘T.’ That’s not a New York thing, so I don’t know where that kid is from but it was annoying.

When the game ended tied in regulation and we got bonus basketball, my decision to join the festivities late looked even better. When Chris Johnson did a full gainer in the pike position while attempting to go for a rebound, not so much. I seriously thought that CJ had killed himself. Luckily I was wrong — he only travelled. How, when he didn’t have possession of the ball when he came down, I do not know.

That ultimately led to Fordham inbounding the ball with 3.5 seconds left under their own hoop and UD leading by a deuce. The inbounds pass went off someone’s leg — either Matt K or Josh — and Parker picked it up and dribbled out the clock.

Slump busted!

The annoying announcer with the pronunciation problem then went out of his way to further endear himself to Flyer Fans. He actually stated that “with the new rule enacted just this year that any ball that hits a player below the waist is considered a kicked ball” the Rams had gotten totally jammed by the refs.

Wrong.

The regulation has always been that a kicked ball has to be intentional. Throwing the ball off of an opposing player’s leg or foot does not constitute a ‘kicked ball.’ And I searched Google high and low and there has been no rule change in college basketball regarding a kicked ball this year or any year in recent memory. Nice try, son.

Elsewhere in the world of hoops:

— The Atlantic 10 is considering going to an 18 game conference schedule:

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/sports/2012/feb/11/tdsport01-a-10-considers-expanding-league-schedule-ar-1680503/?referer=http://t.co/8D0mVp0h&shorturl=http://bit.ly/yRyaHg

Beats the crap out of the present three game “pod system” that’s for sure!

— Let me get this straight: UConn tried to weasel their way back into 2013 NCAA tournament eligibility with the NCAA by proposing their own punishment for having a lousy APR? Yeah that makes sense. Fortunately the geniuses in Indianapolis didn’t fall for it:

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2012-02-10/ncaa-denies-uconn-a-13-ncaa-tournament-waiver

— I know, I know — a lot of you guys can’t stand the NBA. But as a hoops fan, you gotta sit up and take notice of Jeremy Lin, the undrafted kid out of Harvard who is absolutely lighting it up for the Knicks. Keep in mind that “Linsanity” is happening without Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire in the New York lineup:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Ao9xDw1uji4EEKkT7KeVwn68vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_jeremy_lin_knicks_lakers_021112

How does the entire NBA whiff on a kid like that?

— Turns out it wasn’t just The League that missed out on Lin. He ended up at Harvard when all of the major colleges failed to offer him a full ride. However, nobody screwed up more than his hometwon school, Stanford:

http://www.zagsblog.com/2012/02/10/coach-says-jeremy-lin-was-misled-by-stanford-coach/

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