Does anyone want a job at USA Today? According to this article, it's as easy as creating a blog on Blogger. EDIT: The article has been changed. An excerpt of the original article:

"Mississippi figures to provide a challenge to an Ohio State team that plays solid defense as the Rebels have four players who have scoring averages in double figures. Senior forward Charles Rhodes leads the way with 17.5 points a game, followed by junior guard Jamont Gordon (17.1), sophomore guard Barry Stewart (11.7) and sophomore guard Ben Hansbrough (10.2).

Mississippi is also strong on the boards, a spot where Ohio State is vulnerable, as Rhodes is averaging 7.7 rebounds a game and Gordon is averaging 6.5 to go along with 4.9 assists a game."

Seriously, how much work does it take to realize that Jamont Gordon, Charles Rhodes, Little Brough, and Jarvis Varnado (pictured here) are not Rebels? Just read one article about the "Mississippi Rebels". It would be much easier to understand if the journalist had just mixed everything up and written "Mississippi State Bulldogs", but to call the team the "Rebels" and then list players who are Bulldogs just seems like it would be a hard mistake to make.

In speaking with a friend of mine who knows a lot more about journalism than I do, I found out that this mistake is absurdly common for the two Mississippi Schools. Apparently, when Mississippi State was very good at basketball and we were just awful, we received votes every week in the top 25.

Still, I would hope that USA Today would have better knowledge of college athletics than that of Bumpkinville, ME's Bumpkinville High Beat Writer (who, though not real, was recently awarded a vote in USA Today's College Basketball Polling).

I could also understand it if our basketball program were laughable this season, but we were making national headlines often early on in the season.

I'm not asking for some absurd SMB(Spirit Message Board)-style boycott of USA Today. It just upsets me when a nationally-distributed paper's NIT beat writer can't spend 5 minutes figuring out which two teams are half of the tournament's final four.