The Best March Madness story, part two

Kuwada's a good guy, and a much better golfer than I am; not sure I ever found the club that I hurled 100 yards away into a tree.

 

And that's a mistake.

 

Kansas City: Not a big fan of burying the score that deep without a reason, or using a quote before the score. You could easily have moved the score paragraph up to the one after the fourth graf (But not a spot in the Final Four), and it would have helped the flow. Nice effort otherwise, balancing reaction with analysis. Two other points: I could do without "most-costly clank" because it's too cute for its own good, and while I can understand wanting to get the seven turnovers outburst in, substituting the word "freaking" changes the meaning of the quote. Peter Griffin says freaking. This guy (assumably) said fucking. Big difference. Go with "f---ing" if need be.

Los Angeles Times: Strong lede. I really dig opening salvos that throb with a cadence that drives you into the heart of the mob, a quick and intense explosion of words that carries you with it. The second graf does that nicely, and I like the reference in the fourth graf to having to play either the team that ended its season last year or the team that ended its undefeated season this year. Some clunky transition grafs as the story winds down, and the finish is a bit underwhelming, but a solid effort throughout.

Los Angeles Daily News: It reads fine; no breakout moments, no blowaway lede, but also no "wtf" references or clumsy writing. The word "clutch" is rapidly becoming my least favorite cliche; he should have come up with something more polarly opposite to "inconsistent" in the third graf. The first graf could use a little tightening (my attempt: Arron Afflalo beat the 35-second clock with a pair of 3-pointers, kissed a layup crazy-high off the backboard and made an 18-footer to stem momentum. And still he remained stoic.)

Welcome to the OC Register , bitch: I've said before that I like the ledes that throw you into the action, but I actually dig the analytical breakdown of UCLA's defensive effort better. Perhaps it's because I read three ledes that bloomed from the same root of descriptive wordcrafting, and the stark contrast made me pay attention. This graf (Arron Afflalo took and made those shots for the Bruins, as did Darren Collison.) gives me pause; what shots, exactly? I try not to use words like "that" or "those" unless I just came off a graf reference what "they" are. Not bad. Bonus observation: the orange in the Register logo looks stupid.

Wichita: The smallest of the five papers, and not coincidentially, the weakest of the five efforts. Lede is cumbersome, reading more like two half-developed ledes. Analysis is good, especially in this day and age, but at times it looked ready to jump the shark and land in Lake Commentary (OK, next question). Would have been a good column or second-day story, but not a day-after gamer.

Final tally:
1. L.A. Times
2. Orange County
3. L.A. Daily News
4. Kansas City
5. Wichita

 

J-Mart,

I agree that Wichita is a great source for KU news. I personally believe that KC, Lawrence and Wichita all do a very good job with KU. Unfortunately for the folks in Lawrence, they sometimes get ignored nationally becasue of their smaller circulation, and everyone thinks if you're going to judge the best KU copy, it must come from one of the two bigger papers.

Sometimes that's true. But for depth and breadth of coverage, it's tough to beat Lawrence when it comes to info about the Jayhawks.

 

This is a fun little exercise -- I overlooked the placement of the score and voted for the K.C. Star story -- but it's a lot different (and harder) to write a story out of the losing locker room than the winning locker room.