Kelsey Barlow: University of Illinois-Chicago Flame

Kelsey Barlow is now a University of Illinois-Chicago Flame. The former Purdue clowner, smack-talker and defensive nightmare (to opponents) will transfer there this season but will be forced to sit out what would be his senior year.

Barlow was kicked off the Purdue squad after numerous incidents and only played in one NCAA tournament for Purdue, being suspended for one, and not a part of the team for the other.

Barlow was most famous for the choke sign he gave to Verdell Jones III and his on the court demeanor that changed more than Kentucky's yearly rotation.

Barlow did have a few highlights at Purdue. At times he showed promise. In his last season with Purdue he had a stretch of six double digit games in the Big Ten season.  This was definitely topped off by his dunk over Jared Sullinger that the mothership seemed to completely ignore.

I'm not going to deny this -- Kelsey was one of my favorites, but in the end, he was bad for the team. I always thought he had a lot of promise and his inability to mature over his time at Purdue was extremely disappointing (new pete had a more successful career at Purdue).

Barlow brought a lot of laughs and a lot of anger from the Purdue community, but we did learn a lot from Mr. Barlow.

• Athletic ability doesn't mean success
• Work ethic is required to be successful as a Boilermaker
• Matt Painter requires excellence from his players
• Don't lose your wallet at Where Else?

All in all, I wish Kelsey the best in the future and I hope he is highly successful for the Flames, but overall I'm glad that this team no longer has the distractions of such a great talent that was that uncommitted to the team.

David Boudia Represents a Rainbow of Black, Gold, Red, White & Blue

David Boudia, former Boilermaker and current all-world diver, will be doing his qualifying diving this week for the Olympics. According to the site, 120 or so of the country's best divers will be competing for 14 spots.

NBC and NBC Sports Network will be covering quite a bit of it, so check out the schedule.

Carl Landry Is A Boilermaker; Boilermakers Are Tough

We try to keep up with former Boilermakers here and since this happened in an NBA game Friday night, you might not even know about it. However, Dirk Nowitzki drove on Carl Landry and Dirk's elbow smashed into Carl's mouth, which "left Landry with five cracked or completely knocked-out teeth." Guess which player was grimacing in pain on the floor afterwards? Hint: it wasn't a Boilermaker.

Yes, that's right, Carl Landry simply walked towards the bench with his mouth closed tightly, clearly hoping to keep whatever remaining teeth he had (as well as a likely flow of blood) contained in his maw. He simply points to himself in the below video saying, "Yeah, me, I need to come out."

Alas, poor Dirk -- he missed the rest of Friday's game (and didn't play Sunday) after Mavs trainers needed a half hour to "remove pieces of two teeth embedded in [his] elbow." Yikes.

Detroit Boilermakers

Sometimes we like to shine our 2 candlepower spotlight on former Boilermakers who are making a name for themselves in the NFL. Well, one of my personal favorites, John Standeford, is kind of doing that as he's finally seeing some regular action for the Detroit Lions after spending four seasons on the Colts practice squad.

I'm actually not sure being on the Colts practice squad isn't better than being on the Lions active roster, but that's neither here nor there.

John has gone from catching passes from Peyton Manning in the practice bubble to being targeted by the legend that is Dan Orlovsky.

Truth is, though, we're happy that John is getting the chance to play regularly in the NFL because this is a hard-working guy who deserves it. I still wear his #82 to games in the fall.

Also interesting is the John Standeford isn't the only former Boilermaker to be "starring" for the Lions. Ole Stu Schweigert was signed by the league's most inept team in November.

Back to John, though... I thought this quote was a little puzzling, like maybe there's a problem within the coaching ranks in Detroit as far as communicating roles to players (imagine that):

"I thought Detroit was a good fit. I just try to go out there and make plays. I don't know what I am in their scheme. I try to run routes as best I can. I don't know what you call that. I try to get open."

This must be taken out of context because of all the "I don't know" comments -- maybe he was asked what kind of receiver he is or something. But it just seems to fit well with the dazed and confused look the Lions have had all season to match their 0-14 record.

But hey, that's not all on the former Boilermaker thread. You may already know this, but the offensive coordinator, such as it is, for the Lions is none other than (awful) former Purdue coach Jim Colletto. And here's Jim's quote about Standeford:

"He is really a dependable guy," Colletto said. "It's nice to have a couple of guys you can talk to out there. He does exactly what you ask him. He gives all kinds of effort. He is nice to have around."

Is it me, or does that sound really lonely? What are the other players doing? Pushing him down and kicking sand in his face? I guess if you're the O-coordinator of an 0-14 team, you really would be lonely.

Anyway, all the best to John, Stu, and, yes, even Jim.

Offsetting flags were thrown for these blatant purple nurples.

Former Boiler News: Carl Landry

We're always proud of our former Boilers and we also always loved Carly Landry, a good soldier who was rewarded with a trip to the tourney in his senior year.

Last night, Carl was a bad, bad boy for the Houston Rockets in their first preseason game of the season, leading the team with 18 points and 9 boards.

I know none of us care about the NBA preseason, and really don't care much about the NBA until the playoffs (just like the players!), but I thought this was kind of cool.

Carl caught on with the Rockets and was completely unheralded out of Purdue and was a bench guy who became a quality bench guy and is now looking good enough to maybe start some games.

Of course, then I go and look and see Carl's slated to make $3,000,000 this season and I feel a little less like he's the "little guy now getting noticed." Because, frankly, I'd be satisfied with no fame and all blame for every loss for $3M clams.

No, I don't know what my point was here.