BEVERLY HILLS (MI) — The Oceanic Dozen plus Two (otherwise known as the Atlantic 10) conference season is off to a flying start for the Flyers with their OT win over SLU. For our friends to the South…not so much. Let’s take a look around and see what we can see, shall we?

— UD’s victory over Rick Majerus U, as seen thru the eyes and laptop of a Billiken basketball blogger. SLU’s problem in his mind is that Kwamain Mitchell simply tries to do too much:

http://saintlouis.scout.com/2/1145847.html

— Hobbled Flyer Josh Benson and the equally gimpy Trevor Mbakwe of Minnesota made the RushtheCourt.com Morning 5 earlier this week for all the wrong reasons:

http://rushthecourt.net/2012/01/02/morning-five-01-02-12-edition/

— Coverage of the UD/Seton Hall clash, as penned by UD fan Craig Caswell on The Mid-Majority for their 800 Games Project:

http://www.midmajority.com/p/2366

— Ian Nolan at College Chalk Talk checks in with his weekly A-10 Notebook:

http://www.collegechalktalk.com/conferencenotebooks/atlantic10/1.3.12_Nolan

— Doug Tifft (also from College Chalk Talk) talks UD, X and GW in his “Inside the X’s and O’s” blog:

http://collegechalktalk.com/conferencenotebooks/atlantic10/1.6.12Tifft

— ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neill published her “Primer for the Atlantic 10” a mere two days ago and her editor should send it back to her for a rewrite already:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7422950/a-primer-atlantic-10-season-college-basketball

— Eammon Brennan at ESPN.com says that X’s woes are not as simple as advertised. They never are.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/43486/xaviers-woes-not-as-simple-as-advertised

— Gotta agree with Andy Katz on two recent college hoops controversies and their respective conference’s reaction to them– the A-10 simply blew it; the Sun Belt got it right:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/blog/_/name/katz_andy/id/7432887/sun-belt-reacting-well-bad-mistake

— Speaking of the “Crosstown Brawl” what’s worse? Issuing a manifesto that all students who were at the game must attend a mandatory “reflection session?”

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2012-01-06/xavier-administrator-orders-students-to-attend-fan-conduct-session?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Or cancelling said group therapy after it had already garnered nationwide attention (and ridicule)?

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/3624a96b71834150b2b46ce849c14f95/BKC–Cincinnati-Xavier-Brawl/

— UD’s Justine Ratterman earned the “Pickin’ Splinters Performance of the Week” Award:

http://www.pickinsplinters.com/2012/01/01/a-10-performer-of-the-week-justine-raterman/

— Dayton Sports Beat with some great coverage of recent HS games involving potential UD recruits.

Middletown (Geovonie McKnight and Vince Edwards) vs. Springboro (Maverick Morgan):

http://www.daytonsportsbeat.com/?p=497

Franklin (Luke Kennard) vs. Springboro (Morgan):

http://www.daytonsportsbeat.com/?p=517#more-517

— Mike Miller at NBC Sports says that only patient coaches should test their luck with transfers. Obviously his cousin Archie is one patient motor scooter:

http://beyondthearc.nbcsports.com/2011/12/31/only-patient-coaches-should-test-their-luck-with-transfers/

— Scoring is down in college basketball. Here comes Ken Pom with the science:

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/state_of_the_game_2011/

— Wes Welker of the New England Patriots got fined $10,000 by the NFL for wearing an unauthorized hat during a press conference. Only problem was he had worn the exact same hat to the team pressers the previous 16 weeks and no one from the league said a word:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/31/nfl-fines-wes-welker-10000-for-wearing-unauthorized-hat/related/

— Sorry to learn of the passing of Turner Sports veteran broadcaster and Emmy Award winning essayist Jim Huber. I got to hang with Huber when he hosted a Sports Award show here in Motown that was sponsored by my client Chrysler. He was a class act:

http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/7417686/longtime-turner-sports-broadcaster-jim-huber-dies

— “The Sweet Tweets of the Week” come from the aforementioned Maverick Morgan of Springboro HS after UD’s victory over SLU:

“This Dayton game is crazy”

“St. Louis got nothin on Dayton”

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
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