October 2009 What's Cool in Digital College Basketball?

Hoops Fans,

The season is here. I wanted to share a roundabout of things I've seen in the world of college basketball this month that are amazing. Here we go.

Are you excited? Willing to camp overnight in the rain excited? They are in Lexington – Kentucky fans camped out for 3 days for a chance to get tickets to UK’s first practice. That’s incredible. Full reads here and here. Over 300 tents were set up – you can check out the photos here.

Coach John Calipari got started by writing individual letters to each player – to put expectations into human terms, or as he puts it:

"It's to get them to understand what this summer was about. If you're truly driven to greatness, you'll look at every choice you make and ask yourself if this help me get to where I'm trying to go? "

Calipari asked the players what kind of 2009-10 season would make them happy. What strengths can each player contribute to achieve that result? What skill would each player need to develop?
Full article is here.

CBS named Kentucky’s John Wall their preseason player of the year.
The Kentucky freshman would be the third freshman in four years to win the award – after Kevin Durant in 2007 and Michael Beasley in 2008. "He's chasing it," UK coach John Calipari said. "He's absolutely chasing it." Wall has been seen in the gym at 11 some nights, putting up shots with a manager and leading by example. Click here for a full read. Here’s their first-team:

G - John Wall, Kentucky
G - Willie Warren, Oklahoma
F - Al-Farouq Aminu, Wake Forest
F - Luke Harangody, Notre Dame
C - Cole Aldrich, Kansas

I came across this read on Michigan Coach John Beilein and his innovative track workouts. Essentially, the players run two miles in shorter intervals. They run sets of two 400-meter runs, two 200-meter runs and two 100-meter runs twice. That’s it. In between are breaks of varying lengths, similar to breaks players would receive in basketball games. Some breaks are 30 seconds, equivalent to a short timeout. Others are longer, equivalent to a TV timeout. And others are 10 to 15 seconds, just long enough that a player would be at the free throw line or going in for a substitution. How cool is that? The full article is here.

All this is to get ready for the season – Midnight Madness. This post by the Sporting News' Sporting Blog delivers video recaps on several campuses’ Basketball Midnight Madness celebrations including Kentucky, Duke, Michigan, and Washington. Amazing!

Washington's Midnight Madness


West Virginia's Dunk Contest


Maryland-Baltimore County's Dunk Contest

And, check out Pepperdine Sophomore Guard Keion Bell dunk over 5 guys in their Midnight Madness. Wow.


Coaches are getting ready – Men's Basketball Hoop Scoop is a blog that enables coaches to share notes from clinics they attend, while sharing notes themselves. It's super interesting to see this behavior evolve. Link here.

EA Sports released a couple of trailers for their NCAA Basketball 10 game. This will be the first ever video game to feature both the TV announcers and graphics from CBS and those from ESPN. This is really incredible. So if you are playing a game during the week, it’s going to be done by Dick Vitale and the ESPN team. But if it is a weekend game or in the NCAA tourney, it will be on CBS with Bill Rafferty and Gus Johnson. Check these out – it really feels like you are watching these on TV. Incredible.

Here's the ESPN Broadcast version


Here's the CBS Broadcast version



EA Sports announced video angles and replay montages will also mimic the TV broadcast experience. This is crazy - excerpts below, and full read is here.

"Along with your standard single highlight replay (with replay wipe and speech commentary) there are montages that show a collection of a certain type of replay based on how the teams are performing. If a team is shooting a high % from 3 there will be a 3 point shooting montage, if a player is taking over the game you'll see a montage with his highlights, if your whole team is playing well you'll get a team montage. There are numerous different variations of montages that can be shown, each with their own specific wipe and speech commentary, and they really add another layer the stories that are unfolding every time you play a game.

All the replay, post whistle, post basket and free throw camera angles are new. The positions of these cameras are meant replicate authentic broadcast camera location and behavior. This means you will see more cameras at court level and in places around the stadium where a camera man would be situated during a real live broadcast. There are no more cameras that feel like they are hovering in space providing replay angles that you have never seen on TV before. Everything you see in game will be through the eyes of a camera that you would be used in a television broadcast."

All this and the season hasn't really gotten revved up yet... I can't wait!

Andy