I don't understand how you left Baton Rouge off of your list of hotbeds. They may not put them out in sheer numbers, but you can't argue with the quality: the past two SEC freshmen of the year (Brandon Bass and Glen Davis) and last year's SEC player of the year (Bass).
-- Billy, Baton Rouge, La.

Well, Billy, those two guys were the only two notable players from Baton Rouge, which tied for No. 64.

In terms of lesser known hoops hotbeds, what about Peoria or Flint, Mich.?
-- Erik Alexander, Charlottesville, Va.

Peoria finished tied at No. 42 with three players who fit the criteria: Shaun Livingston, Frank Williams and Brian Randle (Illinois). Flint also had three: Olu Famutimi, Matt Trannon (Michigan State) and Marquise Gray (Michigan State).

Six Random Things

• Robert Novak still hasn't gone public about his CIA-leak source, but he came clean with the Washington Post's Reliable Source column this week about an airplane incident he had on the way to Maui to root on his beloved Maryland Terps. Turns out he got into a shoving match with a fellow first-class passenger and had to be calmed down by flight attendants. To which we say: Is it at all surprising that the combative, sometimes entertaining, often offensive Novak is a Terps fan?

• Bucknell's "upset" of Syracuse at the Carrier Dome didn't surprise anyone who saw the Bison beat Kansas and Pittsburgh last season. In some ways, the surprise is why more journos (including the 'Bag) didn't tout Bucknell very much during the preseason, presumably subscribing to the "Lightning Doesn't Strike Twice" theory.

• Keep an eye on Wisconsin, which got a nice win over a good Old Dominion team down in the Virgin Islands on Monday.

• I think I've heard Gonzaga guard Derek Raivio's last name pronounced 10 different ways in the last year, the latest version being "sick clutch shooter."

• What's up with the Guardians Classic taking place in Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium instead of Kemper Arena? Municipal is a historic old barn, but I think it was also the site of the 'Bag's sixth-grade science fair.

• Ups to SI.com's Matt Waxman for getting J.J. Redick to confess he was an expert Beirut player during his first two Duke seasons before toning it down -- and (surprise!) losing a bunch of weight. The 'Bag enjoyed many an evening of Beirut himself back in the '90s, so we'll ask any reader who knows: Where and when did the classic drinking game originate? (Please include the site and date of the first time you heard it described as "Beirut," and we'll file a report for our ongoing catalog of Great Moments in Drinking History.)

Picks From The 'Bag

• In theaters: Shopgirl. It's been a long time since we've seen Claire Danes in a worthwhile film (maybe Igby Goes Down?), but her performance as a lonely Saks salesclerk in the adaptation of Steve Martin's novella has just the right measures of sad and sweet. One caveat: I know this disqualifies me from hipster-dom, but does anyone else find Jason Schwartzman more irritating than amusing? (See Rushmore, I Heart Huckabees and now this.)

• On CD: Amadou & Mariam, Dimanche a Bamako. A blind husband-and-wife team from Mali? Don't laugh. This rollicking album gets big help from another 'Bag fave, Manu Chao, who came out of self-imposed work exile (no new music since 2000) to produce one of the best CDs we've heard all year.

• Vacation spot: Argentina. If there's a better place to visit than Buenos Aires right now we don't know of it. A story in last Sunday's New York Times got it right, calling B.A. the world's only affordable Western European city. The 3-to-1 exchange rate with the dollar certainly helps, which allowed us to kick it with the 'Bag Lady at some of the city's finer establishments. And word to wine connoisseurs like Dr. Z: Check out Mendoza, home to the world's best malbecs and some of the coolest mountain vistas you'll ever encounter. (As long as you don't think about Andean cannibalism scenes from Alive, you'll be fine.)

WATN: Michael Graham Found!

The baritone voice on the line doesn't even let me finish the question. "If you had been on the '85 Georgetown team ...."

"... we would have won."

It's one of the classic what-if questions: If Michael Graham had been eligible for Georgetown in 1985, would Villanova have pulled off one of the greatest upsets in college hoops history?

"I figure there was no way in the world they could have beaten us if I were playing. No way," says Graham, the shaved-headed enforcer who made the 1984 All-Final Four team as a freshman but never played for the Hoyas again. "I saw Reggie Williams a couple months ago, and he was like, 'Don't you know how many championships we could have won?'"

Few college players, after all, have ever cultivated the scary-as-hell presence Graham had on the court. And so he watched Villanova's upset that night on the Georgetown campus, all the while knowing he could have made the difference. "I felt so bad because I didn't take care of my business," Graham says of the academic troubles that followed the death of his mother, Patricia, and cut short his Hoyas career. "After she left the earth the whole world just crumbled. It wasn't a problem of me not being able to do the work. I just didn't sit down and do the things I was supposed to do."

For years Graham has been a sort of WATN Holy Grail. Nobody at Georgetown seemed to have any contact information for him, only vague stories that they'd heard he was playing somewhere in Venezuela (which was true; Graham also played in Mexico and Portugal and in the CBA). But earlier this year SI WATN savant Pete McEntegart passed along an e-mail he'd received from Africa Graham, Michael's wife, who notified us that the Grahams were living in Columbia, S.C.

Last week I called the number she had left and caught up with Graham. After an abortive attempt to play at the University of the District of Columbia, he was picked by the Sonics in the fourth round of the '86 NBA Draft. He didn't stick, though, and bounced around several CBA teams, playing under several notable coaches: Henry Bibby, Cazzie Russell, Bill Musselman and even Phil Jackson.

"Phil already had two veterans doing most of his scoring, so he wanted me to play within his triangle offense and just rebound," Graham says. "I was a 21-year-old kid and that didn't happen, so he winded up trading me. But I love Phil. The last time I saw him was a few years ago in Rockford, Ill., and we had dinner."

Likewise, Graham still keeps in touch with John Thompson, his college coach, "all the time," he says. "He's one of my biggest supporters." These days Graham is the general manager of a furniture company, and he enjoys spending time with his wife and six children (four boys and two girls aged 6 to 23).

And even though he only played one memorable year for Georgetown, those ties still bind. "I'm a Hoya for life," he says.