Stories Well Told

There is a lot of controversy surrounding sports writing. With social media becoming more mainstream, why would anyone sit down and read when they can just see highlights on Twitter. Sportswriters tell stories. Anyone can watch a basketball game and tell you what happened. Sportswriters can watch that same game and turn it into a three-page epic. In my opinion, five main things make a sports story well told.

1. It has to give me something that I didn’t know about the event.

2. It has to give an angle that I can’t find anywhere else.

3. The writer has to grab my attention. It has to be worth my while.

4. It has to surprise me. I have to read it and want to tell my roommate something cool.

5. It has to be delivered quickly. I don’t wanna read about the Super Bowl in July.

I have been tasked to read and write about NCAA women’s basketball. As someone who geeks about basketball, the women’s game seems to slip through the cracks. Every time I see something about it, it’s either UCONN or South Carolina. Filling out a bracket for the tournament is almost boring. Who went undefeated? UCONN? I guess they will win it all. I mean they won 126 games in a row. Disgusting.

As I started researching, all of a sudden I get thrown into the craziness that is women’s basketball. It is no longer UCONN's league. South Carolina isn't necessarily the runaway favorite. One player I have been keeping my eye on is Iowa’s sophomore guard Caitlin Clark.

She was the fastest player in the Big Ten to reach 1,000 points and had consecutive 30 point triple-doubles. Yes, Back to back. Call me next time Jabari Smith is putting up consecutive 30 point triple-doubles. She's a certified bucket.

Oh yeah, she's 19.

Caitlin Clark as a freshman

This article by Zachary Draves does a great job of covering Clark.

I’m not going to rewrite the article because you can just click the link and read it (and I would probably get kicked out of school for plagiarism). It gives you great background information, present-day stats, and comments from Clark herself about the season so far, and what she hopes for in the future.

With March quickly approaching, it is going to be extremely fun to follow Clark and the rest of women’s basketball. I have a feeling this bracket is going to look a lot different than years past.

Coming up I’m going to be covering some basketball games, and there are some rumors about a big-time interview coming soon.