Topic: Dayton vs UNC game recap: help needed

[pride of pleasantville]

First, thanks to everyone who helped me on the Baylor vs.Duke recap. I was going to edit it, but I felt that I should try to write another recap. So here it is of the NIT Final.

Dayton Wins First NIT Title Since 1968
New York- Marcus Johnson scored 20 points, and Tournament MVP Chris Johnson added 14 including, a big 3 pointer, that he followed up with a slam dunk to put Dayton ahead by 9 points with just under four minutes left in the game. The Flyers (25-12) never looked back, beating the 2009 National Champion, North Carolina 79-68. It is the Flyers third title (they won the NIT in 1962 and 1968) in their 22nd appearance in the NIT.
The Tar Heels (20-17) while failing to be the first team ever to win the National Championship in one season and then in the following season win the NIT, did make history as senior Deon Thompson (who added 13 points in 10 rebounds) played in his 152 career game, which gave him the NCAA record for most games played in a career.
Will Graves led the way for the Tar Heels with 25 points, as he broke out of a 7-33 slump for the 3 point range, as he shoot 7-14 from beyond the arc.  The only other starting senior, who was hurt during last years national title run, Marcus Ginyard had only 2 points to end a disappointing senior year which started with a pre-season rank of 6 in the AP poll.

[Wenders]

Your lede should be short and snappy. Keep it to 20 words or less. It should draw the reader in with the most important thing and you don't need to have facts, figures and who scored what that high in a story.

Also, you don't put a dateline (in this case, NEW YORK - should be all caps) unless you were actually AT the event.

You also could use a little work on commas, where they're needed, where they're not, as well as capitalization. In this case, I wouldn't capitalize tournament or National Champion/ship.

You've got good information here. One thing that really sets great pieces apart from lackluster ones are quotes. Quotes really make a story, in my opinion, because they make it more real than THIS PERSON scored THIS MANY POINTS and did THIS. That's where the emotion comes from. I know in a story like this, it's not easy to get quotes yourself (while you're still learning, you might scour the AP wire, look at the Dayton and Chapel Hill papers and see what quotes they have. Then look and see where you might insert them in your story to make your grafs stronger. Also, some institutions put out press releases following the game with a quotes section. Look at those and see what you'd use, what you'd discard and where you'd use it.)

[pride of pleasantville]

Your lede should be short and snappy. Keep it to 20 words or less. It should draw the reader in with the most important thing and you don't need to have facts, figures and who scored what that high in a story.

Also, you don't put a dateline (in this case, NEW YORK - should be all caps) unless you were actually AT the event.

You also could use a little work on commas, where they're needed, where they're not, as well as capitalization. In this case, I wouldn't capitalize tournament or National Champion/ship.

You've got good information here. One thing that really sets great pieces apart from lackluster ones are quotes. Quotes really make a story, in my opinion, because they make it more real than THIS PERSON scored THIS MANY POINTS and did THIS. That's where the emotion comes from. I know in a story like this, it's not easy to get quotes yourself (while you're still learning, you might scour the AP wire, look at the Dayton and Chapel Hill papers and see what quotes they have. Then look and see where you might insert them in your story to make your grafs stronger. Also, some institutions put out press releases following the game with a quotes section. Look at those and see what you'd use, what you'd discard and where you'd use it.)

Thanks. I was looking for a quote by when I was writing this piece (about an 1 hour after the game) there were no quotes any where. I almost used a quote from yesterdays Press Conference, but felt that would be wrong. Also, thanks on the national championship. I was not sure whether or not I should have capitalized it or not.

[Wenders]

Especially for a game like this, most of the press conferences won't be OVER an hour after the game ends. Then, the reporters have to transcribe their quotes and put it into a brief that has most likely already been put on their Web site.

Not even the AP is going to get you a full gamer with quotes one hour after a game. More like two hours.

[pride of pleasantville]

Especially for a game like this, most of the press conferences won't be OVER an hour after the game ends. Then, the reporters have to transcribe their quotes and put it into a brief that has most likely already been put on their Web site.

Not even the AP is going to get you a full gamer with quotes one hour after a game. More like two hours.

Which was my main problem, as I was basically working on a deadline of 11. (I had to go to bed) So, I typed the first copy at 10:00 then rewrote some parts at 10:20 and finally, edited it at 10:30. When I finished around 10:45, I left a spot open for a quote, but none came in.