How fine-tuned are your college basketball gamers by halftime

You don't get on the field. There's a post-game presser with a coach and a player. The locker room is open to the media after a 10-to-12 minute cool-down period.

 

You're not ... but the beauty there is that the final game-changing sequence can -- and often should -- become your whole story. So yeah, when that happens you have to scramble and bang out the story from the ground up in a very short window, but you can focus on how the game ended, which makes it easier.

Funny how advice you got years ago still rattles around in your head ... on my first internship (which is almost 20 years ago now) I had a wild game that went down to the wire, and I was still pretty inexperienced and my story was kind of a wreck because I tried to cram in everything. I remember my editor telling me the next day not to be afraid to let the decisive moment or play become the whole story.

 

People went down to the field after the title game, despite the cool-down rule.

 

Luckily, you could have written that gamer in the third quarter.

 

I read about the first half of this thread (no pun) and then just decided to give my two cents. I've been covering college hoops for a long time and I can't imagine writing anything at the half. The only thing I can see writing at the half would be to recount of the first half to pad the back of the story, but what I've learned is that that stuff tends to be completely irrelevant.

IMO there are two typical ways games go. One, it's decided sometime before the buzzer, giving you the time to get 200 or 300 words done before you leave press row (or wherever the press is put these days; different issue) to head back to the interview room (there's always some lag time before the first coach/team walks in). That can also be done during media timeouts, when free throws are being shot; or if it's REALLY decided early, even as play is ongoing. And, if it does go down to the buzzer then THE STORY IS GOING TO WRITE ITSELF AND IT WON'T MATTER THAT YOU DID NOT START EARLY, because just in the recounting the last possession or two or three, you're going to get deep into the story and, leaving room for quotes, maybe have it about finished in just 10 or 15 minutes, even if you start from the top.

AND, any time you do like 100-200 words on the first half, there is going to be the temptation to use it, which for me is reason enough to never do it.

My thoughts, anyway.

 

First half doesn't mean dick, unless one team makes a major turn of events.
When I write early, the losing team makes a comeback. So I don't

 

You can't ignore the first half completely in your gamer can you?

 

Big Podunk led 14-0 at halftime, with Tommy Zitpopper throwing two TD passes.

 

Of course you can.
Or, of course you can in any way you're talking about it.
For instance:

"Oklahoma led by 10 only 5 minutes into the game and took its first 20-point edge 3:22 before the half."

With a line like that, I'm done with the first half.

If one player had a huge first half, you might have one more line and then be done with the half. But we're talking about one or two lines … basically, my much bigger thought is that a game story is only partially about what happened in the game game. Mostly, it's about HOW what happened in the game happened, WHY what happened in the game happened, WHAT IT MEANS now that it has happened and, of course, WHO impacted what happened the most and how and why and what that means.

That applies to any game at any level. It also means, the next time anybody begins a sentence with "In the first quarter …" or "In the first half …" will be the next time somebody begins a worthless paragraph.

You're not there to tell people what happened. You're there to tell them so much more. When you ask, "You can't ignore the first half, can you?" my first answer is, "Yes I can, and given the way I interpret that question, I can ignore the second half, too."

Finally, it is true, that sometimes there are games where the first five minutes are the whole game. The template was set and that was that. And writing from those games, the only time you may get into the weeds of the game, would be those first five minutes. Of course, you can't know that's all there is to it until much later in the game. So, even then, it serves no point to do any writing at the half.

Says me, anyway.

 

I don't write a word about the first half unless something noteworthy happens. And by noteworthy, I mean: A team either goes up by double figures, or accomplishes some remarkable statistic -- like one team going scoreless for 10 minutes. Even then, that specific accomplishment usually becomes the last graf of the story while I put a tease to it in about graf 3 or 4.

My example third/fourth graf: Joe Schome added 12 points for Podunk U (11-4), which used a huge early run to take a permanent double-figure lead while forcing Bumfuck U into a prolonged scoring drought.

My example last graf: Podunk took control early, reeling off 16 straight points in the first half to go up by double figures to stay while Bumfuck went 10 minutes between field goals.

 

Doodah, you need to read what other writers write, from major papers to small dailies. You'll get sense of what goes into a gamer.

 

What if a team goes on like a 22-0 run in the first half and wins by 40, but before that 22-0 run it was close. You can't tell me you don't reference that streak.