March Madness: Your bracket’s busted, but B/R’s coverage isn’t
Whenever there’s a big event—and I think the first weekend of March Madness counts—I like to review the best of Bleacher Report’s content. It’s a great chance to appreciate how far we’ve come. I’ve been saying this for about a year now: I’d put the best Bleacher Report content up against anyone else’s.
Let’s start with video. B/R has four “franchises” around the NCAA tournament. Here they are with a representative piece.
WSU’s Ron Baker Fires Back at Critics and Impersonates Cleanthony Early: One of six player profiles B/R ran. Baker really opened up and the content was shared almost 6,000 times.
Relive Chris Webber’s Timeout: The Worst Moment in March Madness History: One of 10 top moments since 1980, this look added a fresh contemporary voice in Ric Bucher. A mix of history and opinion.
Crunching the Numbers to Reveal Biggest Potential Upsets in the West Region: Professor Sheldon Jacobson of the University of Illinois gave us a mathematical look at the match-ups. His study looks only at seeding to see where and when the upsets are most likely to occur. This Smart Bracket was on the site the Monday morning after Selection Sunday. There were four videos in the series. The North Dakota State pick was pretty good.
No. 1 Florida vs. No. 9 Pittsburgh: March Madness Preview: One of 63 game previews B/R will post by tournament’s end. Team Stream Now host Adam Lefkoe and B/R writers C.J. Moore and Jason King break down the games in these insightful, quick, engaging videos.
Here is more of the best of Bleacher Report’s March Madness coverage, as identified by B/R editors.
NCAA Tournament Player Rankings 2014: Real-Time Updates, March Madness Tracker: This ranking of the players in the tournament, updated in real time, is a fresh way to look at an event that’s seemingly covered from every angle.
Aaron Craft’s Place in Ohio State Basketball History Safe Despite Shocking Loss by Scott Polacek: Nice job weaving in history with game analysis following Craft and OSU’s last-second loss to Dayton.
Kansas Point Guard Conner Frankamp Coming Up Big After Unexpected Opportunity by Jason King: Frankamp is not a big name but he made a huge difference in that game. This is an example of a writer finding the story as opposed to focusing on the standard story lines.
Harvard’s at It Again: Ivy Darling Downs Cincinnati in Another Round-of-64 Upset by Thad Novak: A ton of depth for what we call a Wave 2 postgame article. Wire services would call it a writethru. It’s a gamer, but with quotes and analysis on top of the result and the details of the game.
Duke’s Stunning Upset to Mercer Shows Jabari Parker Isn’t Invincible by Tom Weir: Clever, entertaining writing in a thorough, forward-looking exploration of all the issues caused by Jabari’s flop in Duke’s loss.
10 Overrated Seeds Most Likely to Bust Your Bracket and Where to Take Your Biggest Gambles in Picking Your 2014 NCAA Bracket by Kerry Miller: Two great tourney previews by a slideshow ace. As usual, Miller’s writing is believable and interesting in these pieces, and he even crunched his own numbers for split stats.
I know there were more great pieces. Did you see any? Share in the comments.