Week 3

Almost surprisingly this has probably been the least exciting week yet for me in terms of advanced reporting. We got our beats last week but since the men's basketball season doesn't start in earnest until November there isn't a lot we can do for that yet. I did talk to the sports information director Dave Reiter the other day though. I told him that John and I would be covering the team, talked a little bit about the upcoming season and he told me when would be good times to start coming down to practice etc. The first story idea, it looks like, will be when the team completes its schedule by announcing the regional draw for the CBE Classic. Dave said they are still waiting to confirm a fourth team, but that one of the other two teams is pretty good mid-major school and went 18-10 last year. He couldn't say who it was though.

On Wednesday after class John and I sat down and looked at the schedule and tried to figure out which mid-major team was 18-10 last year. We looked at last year's NCAA Tournament bracket and couldn't find any 18-10 teams so we assume it will be an NIT school. The NIT bracket didn't have the team's records though, and since we'll find out anyway in the next week or two we didn't put much effort into looking them all up. A few guesses though are Hofstra and Bradley.

We also talked about the scheduling and how things are going to work out. For the most part, the semester break committment isn't too extreme. We will have to stay a few days after finals week for some games and have to come back a week early for some games as well. We both plan on flying down to St. Louis for the Bragging Rights game against Illinois (since there isn't another game within a week either side of it). The only game that we are concerned about is Dec. 27 at home against McNeese State. Like Illinois, there isn't another game for more than a week, so that game will be kind of a pain, but that's why you do advanced reporting is to get experience so we'll be there.

Overall I am really excited for the season to start. If I wasn't doing the freelance work for St. Joseph I would probably be going crazy, because I have constantly been reporting at school since my second semester of freshman year. To not be writing, like I was the first week in Columbia, just feels wrong. This should be a good season to cover this team though because everybody is in their second year with the new coach and hopefully any kinks are worked out. John and I looked at the schedule and see three or four road games that we might be asked to travel to, which could be fun, Overall, I am babbeling but this will be a good year.