Filed under: Basketball
Oh, OK. I’ll post my final, horrible, ugly NCAA Tournament bracket. I picked Louisville to win it all. Damn Tar Heels.
Filed under: Basketball
I should have posted this yesterday. My tournament picks:
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UPDATE 3/21: I know no one really cares, but here’s how my bracket is faring after the first round. I’m 22 for 32. That’s 69 percent — not all that great.
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UPDATE 3/22: We now know the Sweet 16 lineup, and only Arizona is representing the Pac-10. Gonzaga’s in there, which is nice. I’m 11 for 16 in my picks — still 69 percent.
Filed under: Basketball
I’ve been bounced around so much this past year that I’m somehow reminiscing about a beat I never even had. How does that work?
Lisa posted about running into Aron Baynes and Caleb Forrest at Hoopfest, so I won’t delve into that, though it was cool to talk to those guys again. I was once again reminded that I’m not tall.
The big Cougars news this week, of course, was the Charlotte Bobcats drafting Kyle Weaver. Here’s a press conference video from The Charlotte Observer in which we see Weaver all dressed up (something I’ve never seen before), holding a No. 25 Bobcats uniform and smiling that smile we all know. It’s great to see someone who’s worked so hard be recognized in such a huge way as playing in the NBA.
The background: Tony Bennett said he is not going to go to Indiana, has many reasons to like Pullman, and has not considered other open coaching positions.
The misrepresentation: Tony Bennett is staying at WSU.
I must be foreword by saying I had absolutely no hand in the Spokesman’s (read: Vince’s) breaking this story. But what concerned me was the Spokesman’s headline on its front page much of the day Sunday that said Bennett is staying at WSU.
I’m fairly certain this came about because of the built-in gap between reporter and copy editor. A reporter writes one thing that is very specific and carefully worded — i.e. Bennett says no to Indiana, says there are many reasons to stay in Pullman, but doesn’t specifically say he’s staying at WSU — and a copy editor posts the story online with a headline that jumps to a conclusion.
I’m glad the Spokesman (and other papers that made this error Sunday evening) had fixed the discrepancy this morning. But if you look closely, both versions of the headline are still on the website, as illustrated below.
Oh, and for those of you who might think this is dangerous to write about because it’s commentary on the company I work for, let me tell you something about the journalism industry: Skepticism is the name of the game. Don’t fret.
CHICAGO — That’s right, a Chicago dateline. I’m sitting at O’Hare International waiting for a flight to Seattle.
I’m heading home because the Cougars lost Thursday night. In fact, they got whooped by North Carolina. 68-47? That was WSU’s lowest point total of the year. And I think what has everyone bummed is not that Washington State lost — we expected that — but that it played so poorly.
Nevertheless, the Spokesman-Review crew — we put together quite the report on the loss, as evidenced by the screen shot above I took Thursday night (Friday morning?) before I got to sleep. That’s a picture, however, so you’ll have to follow the following links to find my stuff.
Here’s my quick post-game article, which I had plenty of time to write during the game because it was so obvious the Cougars were tanking. And here, after some worrisome technical difficulties (my computer didn’t originally capture the WSU press conference — you know, the biggest one of the year — so I had to capture it from a beta tape a few hours later), is my post-game interview video.
That technical delay explains why I got to sleep at 2:45 a.m. I woke up three hours later so we could leave the Charlotte Marriott at 6:20 to get to the Greensboro airport. Our flight left at 9:50 a.m., and now I’m here in Chicago.
UPDATED: 7:05 p.m. EDT
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — These have been some of the longest two hours of my life, rivaled only by the homestretch on Highway 26 from Othello to Pullman. In one more hour, the Cougars will take on the Tar Heels in what is probably the biggest game in Washington State basketball history.
It’s the Sweet 16, and the No. 21 Cougars are playing the No. 1 team in the nation. What’s getting to me? The fact WSU has a chance. At least one better than a snowball’s in hell. The second-best defensive team in the nation against the second-best offensive team in the nation. Like Tony Bennett said Wednesday, it will be quite the “collision” of styles.
Lisa texted me a while ago and asked if I was nervous. I started typing no, then I realized my left leg was bouncing up and down — and had been for 30 minutes. I suppose I am nervous.
Ethical? You be the judge. I’ve overhead other journalists here say they’re nervous. It’s a big game. I can’t imagine how the Cougars themselves are feeling right now, getting dressed in their locker room down the labyrinthian hall 100 feet away from me. Bennett probably has quite the motivational speech planned.
My next post will be after the game, which starts at 7:27 p.m. EDT. By my next post, we’ll know what happened. We’ll know if I’m staying in Charlotte two more days or trying to catch the 7:30 a.m. flight from Charlotte to Denver, then Denver to Spokane. (We’ve been eyeing that already.)
Happy television viewing.
UPDATE: Twenty minutes until game time. I ventured up into the concessions area to buy some event T-shirts, and all the WSU Sweet 16 shirts were sold-out. The other three teams’ shirts were there in abundance.
The Cougars fan section is fairly strong, and I’ve seen a lot of WSU fans walking around the arena. Lots of athletes’ families, and just general fans. Andy Katz, from ESPN, is currently talking with Dick Bennett, Laurel Bennett (Tony’s wife) and Derrick Low’s dad.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Once again, I worked quite a lot on Wednesday. It makes for a long day after a day-long trip and six hours of sleep (4 to 10 a.m.), but it’s 1:20 a.m. now and I’m still not asleep (time change).
So this will be quick and dirty, because I really should get plenty of rest before the No. 4 (or No. 21, depending on your preference: NCAA tourney seeding or national ranking) Washington State Cougars take on the No. 1 (both in seeding and ranking) North Carolina Tar Heels in their Sweet 16 game Thursday evening.
I checked in with my editor this morning and was assigned the A1 story I expected. The final product, about WSU coach Tony Bennett’s return to Charlotte (where he played in the NBA in the early ’90s), can be found here.
I also did the obligatory press conference video at Bobcats Arena, the edited version of which can be found here (now with horrible sound!). Once again, I used my amazing video-capture contraption I bought at the Apple Store in Denver.
The game is at 7:27 p.m. EDT, and the Tar Heels are favored by eight. But who knows? Maybe the Cougars can continue their NCAA dominance over Winthrop and Notre Dame, and make a serious statement. The Cougs are here to play ball.
By the way, Bobcats Arena is nice, though the depths where the media stuff lives is a complete maze. I’ll write more soon, and once again I can’t guarantee a Where I Work video from Charlotte. In Denver, I just didn’t have the time. And it might be just the same here.
Perhaps it’s old news by now….
Who cares? The Cougs are in the Sweet 16!
And that means I have fewer than 48 hours back at home in Pullman — where I am now — before we fly out to Charlotte, N.C.
But who cares? The Cougs are in the Sweet 16! And I get to cover it! (Though it would be nice to be home for a little longer, for a couple of reasons.)
Not objective of me? It’s not that. It’s not that I’m rooting rooting for the Cougs. It’s that I’m covering a basketball team that advanced to the Sweet 16. After following them all season, knowing how hard they’ve worked, knowing they deserve it. They’re good.
Anyway, I was there in Denver last night when the Cougars whooped Notre Dame, 61-41. They limited the Fighting Irish to just about half their average point total (80). That’s defense. That’s unbelievable.
Here’s my quick gamer on the SportsLink blog, and here’s my post-game video. Take note that, the last time I checked, there were 69 comments on my blog entry. Anyone excited?
Got to bed last night at midnight Denver time. Got up at 4 a.m. Grabbed the 30-minute-late 7 a.m. flight to Seattle. Made the 10 a.m. PDT connection to Spokane. Drove 1 1/2 hours south to Pullman. Got home at 12:45 p.m.
Long day, and it’s barely half over.
So I’m going to watch the UNC-Arkansas game (the winner of which the Cougs will play Thursday in Charlotte), though I can’t guarantee I’ll make it all the way through. It might be nap time.
DENVER — So, a lot has happened since my last real post.
On Wednesday, we had a “free day” without any basketball games. That didn’t mean we didn’t work. Assigned an A1 (front-page) story for the general audience to be printed in Thursday’s paper, I wrote this feature on Daven Harmeling and Caleb Forrest, two junior guards who grew up in Colorado (and the only Colorado natives playing in Denver this week).
Of course, I already posted about that — and my troubles with the NCAA’s video policy.
The next day, the Cougars whooped Winthrop in their first-round game here at the Pepsi Center. The first half was a little dicey (the teams were tied at 29 going into the locker room), but the second half was a WSU blowout.
Links: Quick gamer. Post-game video.
If you look, the video solution worked beautifully. The audio came in a bit hot (and, for some reason, I can’t turn down the incoming audio in Final Cut Express), but that problem seemed to be fixed Friday (I’ll get to that in a bit). (more…)
