Big East Conference Best Practices: Louisville's NCAA Tourney Blog

This blog is all about inspiration. Today is the last of 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Big East. We'll cover these in on this blog, or you can follow along on Facebook (linked here) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

What makes something a best practice? This isn't about the most intricate experience. It's about looking at the world from your consumer's point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I'm treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.

Thus far we've seen how U Conn directs recruits (here), Rutgers connects with their dance squad (here), and Marquette gives us emotional access (here). Let's keep moving.

Click into the Louisville Men's Basketball page, here, and look at the right hand side of the page. Within the list of things the 2009-10 season offers is this: NCAA Tournament blog.



I clicked in... Linked here, you will see that Louisville offers a simple photo recap of their NCAA tourney loss to Cal in photos, both color and black & white. The result is touching and powerful. It's a combination of pictures and videos. Of color and black & white. And it's all packed with emotion.

This is all so powerful because of the intimacy. No one else gets this level of access. It's powerful because of the simplicity. These are big, powerful images, without words. You draw your own conclusions. And it's powerful because of the storytelling. These images, in succession, tell you the story of what happened. Most importantly, this is powerful because hitting the NCAA Tournament (and doing damage once you're in) is an aspirational moment for the prospective student-athlete. Building something around an area your target aspires to experience is smart.

How could this be better? Louisville is not a one-time NCAA tourney team. Thus, I'd like to see the right hand area changed. Show us each season (2009-10, 2010-11, etc) and show us NCAA Tournament as its own area. Add each year's NCAA behind-the-scenes story to this blog. Thus, you position Louisville as a place where going to the postseason is not a once-in-a-while thing. And you give the access to prove it!

That's it for the Big East.

Come back next week as we hit a new conference...

And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.

Andy