Strib: Des Moines has won the NCAA tournament!

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citywok

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Many refer to the Star Tribune as "The Red Star". I don't think that has been accurate, for years now. Today's evidence that they more often fall on the cynical, corporate, negatively 21st Century Media side of their profession... On the same night that the Strib published this clickable flaming garbage can (look at that opening line), Rachel Banham, one of the best womens college basketball players this state will ever see, played potentially her last game at Williams Arena, scored 48 points, broke tournament records, and jumped ahead of legends in the national record books. The Strib didn't even bother to send a beat writer to cover it.

Per Amelia "Go Tar Heels!" Rayno:
Call the oddsmakers. No matter what happens this weekend in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Des Moines already has won.

Two of the most intriguing Cinderellas innocently wandered into the same town as four blue bloods, giving Des Moines the best eight-team field of any first-weekend site. Sure, some brackets might get damaged between Thursday morning and Saturday night, but who cares? This is going to be some phenomenal basketball.

City officials, while likely scrambling to bolster security and rummage up extra hotel rooms, have got to be fist-pumping over this all-star lineup. First-time host just trying to get the house clean? Well, get ready for Oprah Winfrey and Kanye West and the Kardashian clan, because now they’re showing up at your door.

http://www.startribune.com/rayno-be...moines-has-won-the-ncaa-tournament/372300521/
 

Des Moines/Iowa State/Wells Fargo Arena will be extremely lucky if they get to host again anytime soon. Grossly understaffed at the arena. Concessions a nightmare. Some concession stands ran out of food before Thursday's evening session even started.

That's just one example, been attending NCAA tournaments since the esrly 90s, and this was the least prepared venue I've ever seen. If you chose to stand in line for food, you'd literally miss most of the half. Lots & lots of unopened concession stands.

The arena and city are nice, but they (Iowa State is the host) get an F for execution. I'm very interested to see if Saturday will be any better.
 

citywok said:
Many refer to the Star Tribune as "The Red Star". I don't think that has been accurate, for years now. Today's evidence that they more often fall on the cynical, corporate, negatively 21st Century Media side of their profession... On the same night that the Strib published this clickable flaming garbage can (look at that opening line), Rachel Banham, one of the best womens college basketball players this state will ever see, played potentially her last game at Williams Arena, scored 48 points, broke tournament records, and jumped ahead of legends in the national record books. The Strib didn't even bother to send a beat writer to cover it.

Per Amelia "Go Tar Heels!" Rayno:
Call the oddsmakers. No matter what happens this weekend in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Des Moines already has won.

Two of the most intriguing Cinderellas innocently wandered into the same town as four blue bloods, giving Des Moines the best eight-team field of any first-weekend site. Sure, some brackets might get damaged between Thursday morning and Saturday night, but who cares? This is going to be some phenomenal basketball.

City officials, while likely scrambling to bolster security and rummage up extra hotel rooms, have got to be fist-pumping over this all-star lineup. First-time host just trying to get the house clean? Well, get ready for Oprah Winfrey and Kanye West and the Kardashian clan, because now they’re showing up at your door.

http://www.startribune.com/rayno-be...moines-has-won-the-ncaa-tournament/372300521/
Click to expand...

Not sure how the "Red Star" comments are relevant, but this is just plain silly. Why would the Strib send a writer to a women's NIT game as opposed to a NCAA tourney a couple hundred miles away? Local fans were so excited to possibly see Banhams last game that 1,500 showed up.
 

LesBolstad said:
Not sure how the "Red Star" comments are relevant, but this is just plain silly. Why would the Strib send a writer to a women's NIT game as opposed to a NCAA tourney a couple hundred miles away? Local fans were so excited to possibly see Banhams last game that 1,500 showed up.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Not sure why anyone would expect a Minneapolis paper to report on things happening in Minneapolis. Weirdos.
 

LesBolstad said:
Not sure how the "Red Star" comments are relevant, but this is just plain silly. Why would the Strib send a writer to a women's NIT game as opposed to a NCAA tourney a couple hundred miles away? Local fans were so excited to possibly see Banhams last game that 1,500 showed up.
Click to expand...

Give me local writers for local events and I'll read the wire stories of the NCAA tournament a couple hundred miles away that doesn't involve any local angles.
 


Back in the day the Strib was considered way too liberal for the local reactionaries hence the "Red Star" slur.
I would rather watch paint dry than womens BB and most of the sports page readers must feel the same.
 

NCAA coverage over Gophers women's WNIT coverage any day of the week. Not a tough call.

Kansas
UConn
Indiana
Kentucky

4 bluebloods in action or seeing whether Rachel Banham can score 50 while her coach chooses to play zero defense in front of friends and family?
 

Wondering why it has to be one or the other? Joe C., Jason Gonzalez, Kent Youngblood, to name a few, could have covered while Amelia was off in Iowa. To me it is symbolic more than anything else and shows a certain level of commitment from a paper that seems to be getting slimier. And if you think that Rachel B.'s final handful of games aren't worthy of significant local paper coverage compared to a bunch of the crap they put in there, including super weak Kardashian references in an article about the Round of 64 happening 4 hours away from here, then you probably won't agree with any of the dumb junk I post and that's fine.

I know that some people here think that talking journalism on this board is nonsense but it's interesting to me because I think it really affects public opinion on the teams we follow. An off-topic example I think I have said here before, I remember reading Scoggins' series of carefully crafted positive "learning from his mistakes" propaganda features on AP in the months following his child maiming incidents and thinking that he really stewarded and framed public opinion. When he started, everyone was outraged and demanded trades and boycotts. By the time I predicted his August "Out For Redemption" piece, even though AP and the Organization botched the entire process about as bad as anyone could ever imagine, the rubes didn't care at all and were torqued at the prospect of him ripping out TDs all year. There are obviously a lot of non-media reasons for that too, but this really stood out to me. Likewise, I think that Amelia's consistent negative tone and passive mocking of this team and fanbase have unnecessarily contributed a certain percentage (small, but still) to how negatively the fans have viewed this team over the last 5 years. This stuff is more interesting to me than analyzing a recruit's twitter feed and I don't apologize for that!
 

Also I was in a bad mood on Thursday morning, thus my small "red star" rant. :) I still think I have a good point somewhere in there though.
 



SelectionSunday said:
NCAA coverage over Gophers women's WNIT coverage any day of the week. Not a tough call.

Kansas
UConn
Indiana
Kentucky

4 bluebloods in action or seeing whether Rachel Banham can score 50 while her coach chooses to play zero defense in front of friends and family?
Click to expand...
x2 The women's NIT should be treated like the men's NIT in this town. As a joke.
 

Believe it or not, there are some people who don't put their lives on hold during the NCAA tournament. I don't fill out a bracket, and I haven't watched 5 seconds of live action.

For me, I have to have a rooting interest to watch a game, and I don't give a monkey's butt about the teams in the NCAA's.

Given a choice, I would watch the Gopher women any day over the NCAA's, to watch one of the best players in Gopher history. Yes, the Gopher women are putrid on defense, but Banham is a hoot to watch on offense.

As far as the Strib - here's my take. If you're interested in the NCAA tourney, you can follow that on TV, and a gazillion websites. But if you're interested in Banham and the Gopher women, who is going to cover that other than the hometown paper?

The Strib should have been able to cover both.
 

Do you have a rooting interest in any cricket match? Almost as exciting as womens BB.
 

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