Unverified Voracity: Unusual Pigment Edition

I'll take implausible names for $1000, Alex. The gentleman at right is a freshman walk-on on the Minnesota basketball team from Shakopee, Minnesota. Recently inserted into the starting lineup, he helped spark the Gophers to a massive upset of Indiana. His name is...

• Chris Webber
• Fjord Fjordsson
• Samuel H. Jackson
• Jamal Abu-Shamala

If you guessed Jamal Abu-Shamala you guessed right! A truly astounding clash of stereotype with reality. I rate it a 2.0 on the K'len Morris scale of Truly Implausible Names.

Deep insights only found here are few and far between, but I can offer you penetrating analysis into the obscure peculiarities of NCAA member institutions and their reporting of football game play-by-play. I previously mentioned how Ontario Sneed haunts my dreams. Now I bring you this exciting play from last year's Louisiana-Monroe versus Troy slobberknocker:

(1st and 10) Foster, Julian HAIL MARY! pass incomplete to Williams, Darius (Williams, S).

Outstanding. A salute to you, anonymous, underpaid, and bored sports information intern at Troy! Thanks to you, we now know that the Sunbelt is not completely and totally without merit--it is merely 99.99% without merit.

I know we said local, but... Former Michigan cornerback Jeremy LeSueur is on the Seahawk's practice squad. This warrants an article from the Free Press. Seahawks Pro Bowl guard Steve Hutchinson gets a profile in a Pittsburgh newspaper.

On this date in 1998... the basketball team was ranked. It dropped out of the poll on April 11th. It returned today at #20. A listing of things that happened in between:

• two presidential elections
• one poperation
  
• three instances of Notre Dame "returning to glory"
• zero Notre Dame bowl wins.

Also, Chris West ponders the enigma that is Graham Brown:

Michigan’s Graham Brown has always intrigued me. I remember seeing him as a freshman, and thinking that I’d never seen a freshman who’s frame was as filled out as him. Four years later, he actually looks like he’s lost some of his bulk, but he’s still a huge physical presence. Heck, just ask Kammron Taylor, who ran into one phenomenal screen set by Brown.

National Creepy As Hell Day, AKA "Signing Day," is Wednesday. As such expect a temporary flood of creepy recruitin' news followed by an even creepier post-coital cessation. MLive Michigan blog The Diag has a roundup of the various things going on. One caveat: they quote Lemming saying...

And since I've mentioned Lemming, let me go ahead and start by linking you to a chat that he had on CSTV.com last week. Of note is that he says safety Jonas Mouton "will wind up at either USC or Texas" and that Michigan is an early favorite for coveted 2007 quarterback Ryan Mallett.

Lemming's information on Mouton is wrong; Michigan is still in it.