Otterblog

Special NCAA basketball edition

1) As much as Roy Williams hates 9:57 p.m. game starts, we hate them more. They’re a severe test of all aspects of our operation, from news to production to circulation. For news, it means slamming in stories and columns with only the smallest window. Our team in Rutherford, N.J. to cover Carolina knows the drill, and I am amazed with the ground they cover in a short time. For the press, it means a quick turnaround to hustle the paper through the printing process. The real burden falls on the circulation folks. To get a paper from Winston-Salem to a driveway in Boone is much more than just a two-hour drive and a toss out the window.

2) One of our sports reporters was severely criticized earlier this week for a column that said Josh McRoberts was leaving Duke to enter the NBA draft. He was called irresponsible, a gossip monger (in less polite terms) etc. Turns out, we were right. McRoberts is leaving. This is not a time for me to say Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. Or to gloat or anything. But I think that one of the things that has happened in our hyper-info-packed world is that everybody assumes that nobody really does any reporting anymore. It’s just a bunch of opinion masquerading as fact. It isn’t. Not for us.

3) Finally, we had a short today about Tubby Smith leaving Kentucky to go to Minnesota. Without trying to incite a war, I would say that it is a reasonable to say that the state of Kentucky, along with Kansas and North Carolina, have three of the four richest b-ball legacies in the country. I’ll let you fight over the fourth. I met Tubby a few years back, when I was out in Lexington at an event he helped organize to honor Big House Gaines. A gracious man with a competitive streak that just does not end. If you think your job is difficult, try being a Div. 1 basketball coach. Yes, you get paid a lot of money, and everybody wants to talk with you. But you never get a day off, and in a state like Kentucky, about 3 million people or so take apart every decision you make—or don’t make.