BEVERLY HILLS (MI) –- When I play weekend pickup hoops at Birmingham Groves HS down the street from my house, the fellas I play with refer to me as “Old School.” This probably stems from the fact that I’m the only gray haired white guy that can be found anywhere near that basketball court.

I tend to be “Old School” in my media consumption, too. I’m a get up in the morning and read the Detroit Free Press kinda guy, except that now I can only do that on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays since they cut back on home delivery. I still like to watch “Sports Center” and “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN. I took to the internet as an early adapter out of necessity because my work included selling websites like CNN.com, CNNfn.com and CNNSi.com. However, you won’t find me on FaceBook (the Swampettes would kill me) or MySpace and I won’t be twittering every time I blow my nose anytime soon, either. Every week or so I bang out one of these columns on UDPride.com and that’s good enuf for me and I hope it is for you, too.

I bring this up because recently the boys over at “The Blackburn Review” were gracious enuf to invite me over to be the inaugural guest on their very first podcast. Chris Rieman and I had done one here at UD Pride last season, just before the Atlantic 10 tournament. I can’t imagine who the heck else besides Chris and I listened to it, but at least I sorta knew what I was in for when Messrs. Donoher and Blackburn had me dial into their Skype number. Here is a link:

http://www.blackburnreview.com/podcast/

We covered a lot of ground…recruiting, Juwan Staten, Paul Williams, Adreian Payne, the outlook for 2010, Matt Kavanaugh and Josh Benson, etc. You can fast forward to the 10:30 mark if you want to skip the lame intro and get to the good part -– just kidding fellas!

During the podcast, I gave a shout out to the other UD bloggers:

“The Dayton Flyers Examiner” penned by Brendan Bergen:

http://www.examiner.com/x-23097-Dayton-Flyers-Examiner

“The Flyer Fieldhouse” manned by Ray Stineman:

http://flyersfieldhouse.blogspot.com/

and “Peanut Butter and a Blanket”:

http://flyersfieldhouse.blogspot.com/

I gave “FF” and PB and a B” some grief for being asleep at the switch ever since last season ended. Lo and behold, the very next day there was a post on the “Peanut Butter and a Blanket” home page that magically appeared, like a crocus in early spring. Maybe they heard us talking about them, huh?

One of the things we talked about on the podcast is the preponderance of college hoops oriented blogs and tweets and the undue influence they might possibly exert on recruits. The genesis of this discussion was the Washington Post article that appeared a few weeks ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/24/AR2009082401795.html?sid=ST2009082401807

As we discussed in the podcast, I don’t think anybody who is following/reporting on the Flyers is doing anything remotely close to what was cited in the Post piece.

I’m all for expanded coverage, especially when you follow a team that every college hoops website and publication has picked to be in the top 25 this season like UD has. The latest to jump on the Flyer bandwagon? College Chalk Talk:

http://collegechalktalk.com/general/2009-10-season-predictions-flyers-lead-the-way/

My new favorite Twitter site is Mike Duncan’s Ohio National Premier Scouting Service tweet page:

http://collegechalktalk.com/general/2009-10-season-predictions-flyers-lead-the-way/

Since he’s based in Ohio, Duncan has lots of tidbits about kids that BG has been tracking. Me likey!

Right behind Duncan’s tweets on my favorites list are the intraweb stylings of one Juwan Staten:

http://www.oakhillhoops.com/2009/10/juwan-statens-diary-2-heating-up/

Finally, I submit my least favorite blog, something called “Down With Goldy.” At least this doofus did have the good taste to pick the Flyers to finish first in the A-10:

http://downwithgoldy.blogspot.com/2009/09/ncaa-basketball-preview-atlantic-10.html

UD fans are “hippies?” “Hippies?” Are you serious? I sent this link to the Elder Swampette, who was one of those rabid UD fans at Finley Dunne’s for the WVU game that this toolbox is referring to and she wrote back to say that she had absolutely no idea where this clown was coming from.

Hippies?

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