Topic: Okay here it is.

[pride of pleasantville]

Some one said I should do a game wrap up, get all the important facts and something interesting about the game in 200 words. Here is what I wrote. Any help, advice, or anything like that would be appreciated.

Duke 78, Baylor 71
Houston- The number one seeded Blue Devils (33-5), who were led by 29 points from junior Nolan Smith, prevailed over the third seeded Baylor Bears (28-8), in front of 47,492 fans at Reliant Stadium for  South Regional Championship.
Duke, who will take on West Virginia next Saturday in the national semi-final, won despite troubles shooting the ball for Kyle Singler, who failed to make a field goal in the game, however 22 offense rebounds as a team and 49 points from the tandem of Smith and Scheyer helped them defeat the Bears, who were led by 22 points from LaceDarius Dunn, along with 18 points and 5 blocks from center Ekope Udoh.
The turning point in the game came after a Nolan Smith missed free throw, with the game tied, and just under 4 minutes left to play.
 Senior Lance Thomas grabbed one of his nine rebounds and threw it to Smith in the corner, who buried a very important three pointer. Scheyer hit another three, on the next Duke possession that put a nail in the Bears' coffin. "Those two 3s in a row, by Nolan and then Jon, those were big-time plays," Krzyzewski said. "The big guys kicked it out and those are the best 3s to take."
 The Blue Devils are heading to there first Final Four since 2004, and their 11th under Krzyzewski.

[dinosaur]

Seeds not important in the lede.
Crowd size not important in the lede.
Semifinal.
Offensive rebounds.
Five blocks.
3-pointer.
Who are these Scheyer and Krzyzewski guys?
Their, not there.

[EagleMorph]

Shorter sentences rather than ones filled with commas. Your second graph is one gigantic sentence.

[Stitch]

This belongs in the writing workshop.

[dinosaur]

Punch up that lede!

Something short and snappy that includes the most important fact: Duke is back in the Final Four.

Scour the Web for stories about this game.

[WriteThinking]

This belongs in the writing workshop.

Copy that.

Also, when you title a thread, make it something specific, direct and appropriately descriptive, so that we know what the thread is about.

This is not Facebook. Don't write or title things as if it is.

And don't play around and use transparent tricks to make people open it. Make things direct, specific and to-the-point, especially on the Journalism Topics board, which we take and treat seriously.

Something like "Duke-Baylor game story: feedback wanted" would be good.

[bl67550]

Duke's leading scorer in the lede? Questionable at best. I'm sure there was something in that game that was much more exciting - perhaps Scheyer's riddle of threes to seal it at the end? Zoubek's huge put-back with 1:00 left.

Gotta have a snappy opening that draws a reader in, otherwise you're just another AP writer putting out a national story without any previous knowledge of the two teams involved. Make the reader feel like you know these squads intimately from the get-go.

Rather than "Scheyer failed to hit a field goal" I would actually like to have that specific stat. Was he 0-for-4, 0-for-30? It matters.

No comma needed in your next to last paragraph between "Scheyer hit another three" and "on the next possession."

Nice information in your final paragraph. That is the type of material that should be in all stories, preferably near the top.

Believe me, I have seen a lot worse than this, and yeah, that was in actual print.

Practice? You talking about practice?

Yes, I am, it's all you need.

[Football_Bat]

Four dependent clauses in the first two grafs.

But no "woulds," so there is hope.

[Moderator1]

Writing workshop - we've been over this before.

[pride of pleasantville]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I am leaving for spring break so I will have to edit it on thursday. I plan on doing this again for both of the Final Fourgames.

[bl67550]

Four dependent clauses in the first two grafs.

But no "woulds," so there is hope.

Hah, I remember one of my first pieces as an intern. Someone must have slipped some X in my soda at the ballgame, I had like a dozen or more 'woulds' in that piece. HAHAH.