BEVERLY HILLS (MI) — The Flyers welcome home one of their own Wednesday night when Anthony Grant and his Alabama Crimson Tide roll into UD Arena for the first time in 40 years. As I mentioned on the UD Pride MB, AG deserves a prolonged standing ovation…is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that he will get it?

— Coach Grant didn’t seem to want to talk about himself or his ties to UD at all according to this transcript of his press conference with the ‘Bama media posted by Doug Harris on the DDN website:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/daytonflyers/entries/2011/12/06/anthony_grant_interview_with_l.html?cxtype=feedbot

— Don’t look now AG, but Andy Katz has picked the Flyers as his “Upset Special of the Week” against your squad in his “Weekly Watch” column:

http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/page/notebookweeklywatch1201/week-1

— UD also (unfortunately) gets mentioned in Katz’s piece on the impressive Murray State Racer squad that beat UD last time out:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/blog/_/name/katz_andy/id/7319854/consistent-murray-state-rolls-right-along

— Like some of you, I’m of an age that allows me to actually remember watching Coach Grant as a player in a Flyers’ uniform. AG always reminded me of a slightly smaller, little less acrobatic version of Roosevelt Chapman.

— In case you missed it, Conrad Klank from Stadium Journey (who I had the pleasure of sitting next to at the UNCW game) posted his review of the UD Arena:

http://www.stadiumjourney.com/stadiums/university-of-dayton-arena-s834/

— Rush the Court’s “Checking in on the A-10, Way to go Flyers” rundown after the Old Spice Classic:

http://rushthecourt.net/2011/11/29/checking-in-on-the-a-10/

And their “Checking in on the A-10, WTF Happened?” version after the Buffalo and Murray State debacles:

http://rushthecourt.net/2011/12/06/checking-in-on-the-atlantic-10-conference/

— Sports Illustrated profiles the world’s first teenage hoops recruiting guru, Alex Kline:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1192862/1/index.htm

— UD Mercy’s Ray McCallum with the best accidental basket in a D-1 hoops game that you will see all week:

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2011-11-28/ray-mccallums-accidental-basket-gets-attention

— Elena Delle Donne (who I hooped with in Stone Harbor, NJ several years ago) has led the University of Delaware Blue Hens into unchartered territory – the Top 25:

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/womens-basketball/news?slug=ap-t25-delaware-ranked

— This piece from ESPN.com on “The Death of the Sports Interview” is well, dead-on. “Coach, talk about (fill in the blank)” does not now and never has constituted an interview. It is nothing more than an indication of pure laziness/ignorance on the part of the interviewer:

http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/7319161/espn-death-sports-interview

— I’m sorry, but former OSU and River Rouge (MI) HS star Brent Darby is just too ****ed young to leave us at age 30:

http://cleveland.sbnation.com/ohio-st-buckeyes/2011/12/6/2616513/brent-darby-death-ohio-state-buckeyes-news

— “Sunday Night Baseball” on ESPN just got a whole lot better with the addition of former BoSox skipper Terry Francona:

http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2011/12/05/terry-francona-joins-espn-multi-faceted-role-includes-sunday-night-baseball-analyst/

— I love me some time lapse video of the insane morning rush hour traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam:

http://vimeo.com/32958521

— It is a gopher tortoise vs. research robot kinda world out there, kids:

http://jacksonville.com/video/news/florida/2011-12-02/watch-gopher-tortoise-battles-research-robot

— “The Sweet Tweets of the Week” come to us from hoops guru Roger Bohn, Senior Writer for Slam Magazine:

“Checking out the Erie Bayhawks season opener…5-7 guys who could be in NBA training camp next week.”

When asked any names we should know, he responded:

“Chris Wright from Dayton.”

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
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