Tag: reporting (Page 7 of 8)

In which a game goes down to the wire.

My high school basketball reporting experience this year has been decidedly one-sided. Other than two games that featured two local teams, and thus had me covering both the winners and losers, just about every game I’ve done this year has been a comfortable win. More often than not, the team I’m writing about has been on the wrong side of the blow-out.

Tuesday night looked like yet another game where I would struggle to put together 400 words about a team that was never in the game. As the third quarter wound down, the W’s, as I’ll call my team, trailed the D’s by 15 points. The W’s were shooting a cool 19% for the game, were under 50% from the line, and couldn’t get a rebound to save their lives. The only thing they could do right was pressure defense. The W’s were forcing turnovers left and right, but couldn’t convert. On the rare possession they did score, they’d let the D’s come right back and score immediately.

Things looked bleak when one of the W’s took a deep three pointer that came up about five feet short. I could sense that the fourth quarter was going to be mind numbing as the airballs piled up and I struggled to track all the missed shots while thinking about what my lede should be.

Then, the W’s started hitting shots.

A three.

Then a two.

Then another three.

The deficit was 12. Then ten. Then seven. Suddenly the game seemed within reach. They kept forcing turnovers, but finally they were running offense and getting clean looks. Another three cut it to four. Traded baskets and free throws had it at three with under a minute to play.

I was seated right behind the W’s bench. With about 30 seconds left, one of their guards came off a screen right in front of me, got the ball, and unleashed a high arcing shot. It looked about as pure as could be from my view. It dropped through the net; tie game! And then, “TWEET!” I looked down to see the shooter on the ground with a defender on top of her. And one! A free throw to take the lead after being down by 15! Finally, something juicy to write about!

Alas, she missed the free throw. Then, for some strange reason, the W’s point guard decided to foul 60 feet from the basket. In a tie game. With under 30 seconds left. When she had four fouls. Oy! Or WTF, depending on your point of view.

The D’s hit both shots to go up two.

The W’s came back, got the ball to the girl who had just tied the game. She looked down the lane, saw a clear path, and headed towards the hoop. A defender closed and she went up, twisting and flipped a difficult lay-up from five feet.

It rimmed out.

The W’s couldn’t corral the rebound, were forced to foul again, and ended up losing by four.

Sigh.

I made my way back to the locker room and could hear their coach screaming at them. In 15 minutes I went from dreading writing about the game, to being very excited about it, to now dreading talking to the coach after her team blew the game.

When she emerged she looked to be in no mood to talk, so I let her go sit with her assistants and cool off. When I finally talked to her, she had calmed down but still was not pleased with her team.

But the story came together ok, I guess. I built the story around the comeback and the coach’s laments about missing the opportunities to win the game. And I got to watch a hell of a fourth quarter for a change.

A few notes, anecdotes, and thoughts from my travels across central Indiana covering high school sports.

Morning update. The team I cover that always loses? They won by 24 last night. No, I did not attend the game. I’m definitely a jinx.
This began with the idea of being a short review of a couple stories. But I guess all the tight writing I have to do for the paper – my stories normally run between 300-400 words – means I have to go crazy here. So prepare yourself.

I’m pleased to say I think I’ve got the stats thing down now. It took me 15 minutes tops to do my box score this Tuesday. Of course, it helps when one team only takes 25 shots in a game. And then the story came pretty quickly as well. I walked out of the gym at 8:45 following a 6:30 game. A month ago I imagine it would have taken me another 30 minutes to wrap things up. So that’s good.

I’ve covered one girls basketball team four times this year. They’ve lost all four of those games, three of them by more than 30 points. I was not able to cover one of their games that my editor offered me last week, and then they played over the weekend in a game I did not cover. Naturally, they won both games. I half expected the coach to run me out of the gym when he saw me walk in Tuesday night. As expected, they dropped a nail-biter by 32. I’ve yet to talk to any of his players because I’m at a loss for what to ask a bunch of 15-17 year old girls who just got trounced.

I had an interesting encounter at one of their games before Thanksgiving. I was seated in one of the press tables. This gym has two. The top one has bleacher seats while the lower one requires a folding chair. That night there were no chairs out, so the guy keeping stats for one team and I were seated in the upper row. Shortly before tip-off, a guy who looked like he was about 40, wearing a sports jacket, walked over and tried to sit in the lower level. He looked around for chairs, couldn’t find them, and started muttering to himself. I said something like, “I think they forgot about us,” and he gave me a strange look, like he was surprised that I would talk to him.

He took a seat in the upper row a couple spaces from me, busted out a notebook, and started writing in the names of the starters for both teams. Midway through the first quarter, when I started to get a rhythm for keeping my stats, I noticed that he was talking to himself. As the game went on, and I was able to listen closer, I realized he was doing a play-by-play of the game. To no one. Well to himself I guess. It started to make sense why he gave me the weird look: I’m pretty sure the guy was autistic or had some kind of mental impairment. My wild guess is that he had a sister that played for the visiting team back in the day, and this is his little Rain Man obsession.* He was awesome, though. He knew the last time the visitors had won in that gym, which was back in February of 1986. And he knew the score of that game. It’s not like he was toting around a media guide or something, either. Homeboy knew his history.

I assumed sister because he did not keep stats during the boys game that followed.
The visitors were up most of the game comfortable, but in the fourth the home team made a come-back. With about four minutes to play, they cut it to a four-point game. My neighbor was getting excited. “Look out, folks, we got ourselves a tight one!” he exclaimed. On the next possession, his team knocked down a three that effectively ended things, and he shouted, “Boom baby!” which is the three-point call for Pacers’ announcer Slick Leonard.

He sat with the rest of the fans for the boys game, but I saw him after the game walking out with some of the boys reserve players. He was saying something like, “You better learn how to play defense or you’re going to get your butts beat.” Behind his back, the freshmen and sophomores who sat at the end of the bench were making fun of him. It was sad to watch, but I realized A) I probably would have done the same thing when I was that age and B) he had no idea they were making fun of him and was probably thrilled he was hanging out with the players. Sitting by him made my night.

Last Friday I covered a boys game. The two schools aren’t terribly close to each other, but are in the same conference and apparently there is a bit of history between them. I got to the gym early, so was able to watch the second half of the girls game that was before the boys. Parents from the visiting school were behind me and a couple of dads were unloading on the refs. One ref missed a fairly obvious push-off and they lit into this guy for the next ten minutes. It’s worth noting that their team was up by about 20 as this was going on, so it’s not like he cost them the game or something. At one point, still up 20, a mom yelled at a ref asking him which daughter on the home team was his. The home coach looked back with a pained, annoyed look on his face and muttered, “All of them,” sarcastically. A couple of the parents seemed offended that he would dare say something in response to them while their daughters were kicking his team’s ass. “Did you hear what he said?” they shrieked in disbelief.

Anyway, when the boys game started, things got even more interesting. Both teams had some big guys and in three loose ball scrambles in the first quarter, they were diving all over each other, rolling around, throwing elbows, and having to be pulled away after the whistle. After the third scuffle, which was about two seconds away from turning into a full-blown fight, the refs stopped the game and warned both teams to knock it off. From my vantage point, the visiting team started things as their guard, who hit a three and got fouled on the game’s opening possession, threw an elbow and knocked a guy over during the first scramble. Yet the parents behind me were screaming at the refs for letting things get out of hand. “You should have stopped it the first time, before it got out of hand,” one yelled. He was directly behind me and it was hard not to turn around and say, “You know it was your player that started it, right?” I figured it best to remain impartial and silent.

The game was tight for awhile but the home team won by about ten. In the game’s closing minutes, a reserve for the home team got fouled rather hard and then said something to the guy who fouled him. A ref jumped in to keep things cool and the kid then smarted off to the ref. I was blocked so couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but it seemed more like a carry-over from the earlier events than something new. As the game ended, there was lots of muttering from the parents behind me as the home students across the court chanted, “Just like football,” and “Maybe next year.”

After the buzzer sounded, I did a quick check of my scoring to make sure I had everything before I went to interview the home coach. As I was totaling things up, I noticed a guy was having an animated conversation with the PA announcer. They were about three feet away from me, but turned from me so I couldn’t pick out the entire conversation. I’m not sure what the PA announcer said, but I gather something he said as time ran out pissed some of the visiting fans off. He seemed normal and inoffensive all night, so I can’t imagine what it was that annoyed the visiting parents so much. When he got rid of that guy, a mother came over and asked him if he was the person who read the sportsmanship spiel before the game. He responded rather curtly, which got things going with her. I actually headed towards the locker room, but came back to “check something” in my notes just so I could be there if someone came down and started swinging on the PA guy. Talk about a scoop!

When I did head to the locker room, I noticed there were five police officers standing at the edge of the court, watching everyone who filed out. Terrific drama for an early December basketball game. They still take things seriously some places in Indiana, apparently.

After I returned from the locker room, I heard the PA guy and the athletic director talking about what had happened. The AD made it sound like problems with the visiting school’s parents go way back and their behavior and complaints were par for the course. It would be fun, of course, to see the same teams play at the other gym to see how things were handled over there.

The high school girls basketball season has started here in Indiana, and I got to cover my first game of the year last night. It was kind of a big deal because my editor handed me an official newspaper laptop and told me to keep it for the season. Which means I’ll be covering at least one game a week for the next three months. I’m moving up in the world.<!–more–>

There was definitely some rust on my basketball reporting skills.* I was covering a game in a county tournament and one of the full-time writers was covering the early game. We had to help each other quite a bit as we scrambled to remember how we track stats.

Some of you are saying, “You can write 3000 words about some freshman at KU who has never played a minute. Don’t give me this rusty crap.” But actual reporting means I have to cut the opinion, the silly jokes, the off color comments and stick to facts, quotes, and relate what really happened. And you can’t really rip 15 year old girls. My stories would be awesome if I could write them like a blog post!
Luckily, in some ways, my game was a total blowout. The “home” team was up by one midway through the first quarter. After that, they got outscored 75-12. The “visiting” team** is pretty solid, and feature a 5’3” girl that can score from anywhere on the court. Those of us in press row let out a few “Whoos!” when she hit two step-back three pointers and a couple floaters in the lane.

** I say “home” and “visitor” since it was a neutral court and both teams were really away.

My stats seemed to hold up, but I went down to double check my individual totals with the official box after the game. There was one basket I missed so I was able to identify the correct player (the winning team cleared the bench for the fourth quarter, and had five girls on the court in the closing minutes that weren’t listed on their roster). I scampered out and did two quick interviews and came back to start working on my box score and story.

Then I looked at the clock. 9:45. We have a 10:15 deadline on non-football nights. Wow.

The box score was harder than I thought it would be, and at 10:00 I was just starting my story. I hacked together a pretty crappy piece covering the basics and sent it in at 10:13. It wasn’t good work, but it’s early in the season. Plenty of room for improvement.

Then I opened the Indy Star today and saw they had a different score listed than what I had. They had it at 84-30 while I had it 82-30. I never double-checked the scoreboard in my post-game rush! Oh crap. I felt like garbage and sent my editor an e-mail noting the discrepancy and letting him know I had checked the individual numbers, which added up to 82. He said not to worry, the Star often gets the numbers wrong because parents call them in. Also, since he hadn’t received any e-mails or phone calls about the score being wrong, chances were that I had the correct score.

This afternoon, I was able to check the state high school sports association’s website, and they listed the same score I had. Whew!

Still, not the best way to start the season. I was able to find some ways to improve my stat keeping and some checks to run during the game to make sure I have things under control. Looks like I’ll get to test them out next Wednesday, when I cover the rematch of the teams I saw last night. Hopefully they’ll keep it within 50 this time.

Oh, and some of you may remember the losing team as the team I covered last year with the young, female coach who lit into them during every timeout and pretty much every person in the gym could hear it all. Tres uncomfortable! Absolutely the worst post-game interview I’ve ever had, as the coach was crying and pissed and called her players little babies.

Well, that coach has moved on to another gig, but her dad, who was also the coach before her, has taken over. He’s intense, too, but perhaps a little less demanding. Anyway, despite getting drilled, they seemed better than last year. They’re still very young but the opposing coach said they were the best team she’s seen from that school in years. And I think having a male coach makes a difference. During that game last year, parents were constantly yelling at the girls, telling them to do exactly the opposite of what the coach had said during time outs. I didn’t hear any of that last night.