Pound sand AP

State basketball tournament week has arrived and you aren't moving any scores!?! Tournament sites scattered to every corner of Redneckistan and you aren't compiling scores!?!

Thanks AP, appreciate the help. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go surf some fan boards looking for final scores.

 

Thankfully, in Indiana, in lieu of the AP cutting back, we have this:

www.indianahsbasketball.homestead.com

It's a sportswriter's dream, and one of the most popular sites in the state (and it's done by the desk guru of the Bloomington Herald-Times). When I broadcast games, half my game prep is done here.

 

Kansas has an e-mail system. If the AP isn't on the stick that night, Wichita, Salina, Topeka and Kansas City lead the way and other smaller papers make contributions.

One night someone from the AP called to ask me for a score of a game that wasn't being played that night. And I was sure it wasn't because had that game been played, I would have been covering it. So there's the AP for ya.

 

I see these threads every year. And a small part of me gets a bit annoyed, because our AP has never and will never compile state tournament scores.

If the score you're worried about is from an area team, call the coach.
If not, call a paper that serves that area.
We've been doing this every night. Not a big deal.

 

For last weekend's portion of state tourney time, we had the AP and the state governing body reporting not only wrong scores but the wrong team winning for many games.

 

Actually, some state AP folks do compile them and others don't. Just as an example, Louisiana does, Mississippi doesn't. Fortunately the state association in Mississippi realized it'd be a good idea to join the 21st century and post scores and box scores on its web site (something they hadn't done in the past), so we can at least update our own agate list. Still a bit annoying that there's nothing from the state AP about it, though. In years past they had shot and moved a capsule on just about every game.

 

Florida's State Association does a pretty good job of updating scores as the coaches report them in all of its team sports, the individual sports can be a little trickier, but pretty much every night there's a region playoff game, you'll find all the brackets completely updated by 10:45-11 p.m.

 

New york's doesn't do shit.

 

AP def. doesn't go near state tourney stuff in Mass.

 

Same in Calif at the Section level. I call around and swap scores or check websites. A state this big, I don't expect any help from AP at sectionals (AP Cali. doesn't even do a poll, but calhisports.com fills the gap fine).

When it comes to regionals, the state association usually has scores on its site within a couple of hours of the final buzzer. For regional finals, AP usually has stringers there to file 200-300 word stories. When NorCals are at Arco, they'll send a shooter. Don't know why SoCals aren't shot. State finals, same as regionals.

 

Michigan was always wonderful with scores; Alabama blows to the point that the writers share scores with one person compiling the scores, then resending, and another paper sending out the next-game's matchup.
The state tourney coverage was incredibly bland: No copy off any of the state semifinals; 150 words, no quotes on the finals. I remember the day and the state where it was 150 words on the semis and freakin writethru and adds with quotes on the finals.

 

The reason I was so bothered was the AP did move tournament scores a year ago. And the year before that and so on. Then this year rolls around and I have to call the bureau to learn nope, no scores this year.

A simple e-mail alerting us the bureau (or that call center in Spokane) wasn't going to make the effort this year would have been nice.