By JABARI WILBON

By now, the long 82-game NBA season has come to a close and the playoffs begin Saturday. This year, especially compared to last, there have been many intriguing stories and moments that will definitely make these playoffs worth watching. Last year, everyone knew that the Golden State Warriors were significantly better than everyone else and they showed that in the playoffs by nearly sweeping every team they played.

The Boston Celtics were everyone’s pick to upset the Cavaliers this year in the playoffs. But after an injury to Gordon Hayward and a recent injury to Kyrie Irving, the Celtics are without their two best players.

News articles all across the Internet and social media have surfaced about Irving’s status and the Celtics decision to rest him until next year. Coverage has been heavy and persistent because of the aftermath of him leaving Cleveland and his rivalry with Lebron James. The media has been talking about how much it would mean for Kyrie to eventually overthrow Lebron and have continually updated on his injury.

The Washington Post, along with other newspapers, have put off a full first round prediction for each series. Included in this article is a summary of each team’s regular season and then a prediction of who will win the series and why.

SBnation.com has an article that included the schedule for all of the games in the first round. Overall, the coverage for the upcoming playoffs are on everyone’s radar and will eventually turn in to articles reviewing series and talking about the next series.

Sports Nation also made an article of a hypothetical where the playoffs weren’t split up into East and West. Instead, it took the 16 best teams in the league by record, ranked them, and matched them up this way.

This was a very interesting article because this was something that has been talked about in the NBA for years: the idea of ignoring conferences and pooling all the teams in the league at once. If this had been done for this year, then the matches would be completely differently and a lot more intriguing.

The Celtics would play a tough west coast opponent in the first round in the Timberwolves. The Warriors would face a tough Utah Jazz team that would only have made the playoffs with this method of pooling.

Overall, coverage of the NBA playoffs is already heavy, even though it hasn’t started yet. All of the NBA analyst are tweeting their first round predictions and why they picked them. The 2018 playoffs should be a roller-coaster and the media is going to cover it to its fullest.

By JABARI WILBON

On Monday night, the Villanova Wildcats defeated the Michigan Wolverines 79-62 to win their second NCAA title in three years, capping off an impressive run through the tournament. Villanova was the most talented and best team in the country throughout the entire year and the team proved it by winning it all.

National Player of the Year Jalen Brunson had an off shooting night for Villanova and was on the bench for a longer period of time because of foul trouble. Because of this, Donte DiVincenzo had the opportunity to have a big game.

DiVincenzo responded with 31 points and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. Michigan’s hot streak came to an end at the worst time. The team hadn’t lost since January, winning the Big Ten tournament and beating its first few opponents in the NCAA tournament by decent margins.

Overall, the news media did a great job covering the championship game, especially with it being such a popular and heavy televised event. Right after the game, SportsCenter offered full highlights and interviews with several players from both teams.

There was also footage of the trophy ceremony and Villanova cutting down the nets all over the TV and YouTube. There was footage of all of Villanova’s top plays throughout the entire tournament.

There were articles publlshed all over the Internet by the next morning describing how Villanova pulled it off and what this means for the program and for Jay Wright, head coach. There are articles on CBS news, ncaa.com, Washington Post, and ESPN.

All of the articles were pretty similar and talked about DiVincenzo’s stellar performance. There was also an uproar on social media about DiVincenzo. It seemed like not many people had heard about him and people the media was raving about his performance and covering how well he complimented the rest of his teammates. There was even speculation from some media personnel that he could be picked in the upcoming NBA draft.

The one thing that I think could have been covered better was DiVincenzo’s backstory and how he got to this point. He pretty much became an overnight sensation because of how impressive of a player he was, especially since not many people had heard about him.

There were some mentions of where he was from in some of the articles, but there wasn’t much about why he red-shirted and the injury that caused it and how he bounced back from it. Other than more history about DiVincenzo’s career, I feel like the championship game as a whole was covered well.

By JABARI WILBON

By now, everyone has seen the year’s Final Four in the March Madness tournament: Michigan, Villanova, Kansas and Loyola-Chicago. For many brackets, the first three were not a surprise at all. Michigan has been hot for the past month, beating Michigan State and Purdue to win the Big 10 Tournament. Kansas and Villanova have been consistent powerhouses and consistent No. 1 seeds during the past five years.

Loyola-Chicago on the other hand is the Cinderella of the year, being the No. 11 seed and still making it to the Final Four, beating several good teams to get there, including University of Miami with a buzzer-beater in the first round.

Coverage of the tournament as a whole has been heavy and consistent for the past two weeks. Stories have been put out by each school’s own newspaper about their chances and their performance in the tournament.

Coverage has been heavy on TV as well, especially in the last week leading up to the tournament. ESPN has been talking about the final four a lot, especially “First Take” the sports talk show with analysts, Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman. The two have talked all week about who they think will advance to the championship and who will come out on top.

The two have also talked about if Cinderella teams like Loyola-Chicago are helping or hurting the tournament. Stephen A. Smith made it well-known that he did not want Loyola-Chicago to be in the final because he wanted the best to be in the championship. He is fine with Cinderella teams because they are good stories, but when it comes down to the final, he would prefer a match-up between big schools.

USA Today put out an article at the beginning of the week previewing the game between Villanova and Kansas. The article talks about what each team needs to do in order to win the game. It also talks about each team’s path to the Final Four and how it will affect their play in this game.

An article was put out on ESPN.com this morning on how each Final Four team can be beat. It goes one by one for each school and gives details about their weakness and how their opponent can exploit that.

An article came out about three hours ago talking about how Loyola-Chicago was staying in the same hotel as Russell Westbrook in San Antonio, where the Final Four is this year. NBA star Russell Westbrook told the team to go win it since they already made it this far.

Overall, the coverage for the Final Four has been great and the reporting for the Final Four as a whole as well as each specific team has been great for reporters across the countries. The Final Four starts on Saturday and we will see who advances to the national championship game.

By JABARI WILBON

In the middle of Thursday afternoon, Bruce Brown broke the Internet when he put a post on his Instagram page declaring for the NBA draft. Brown is a sophomore guard who could’ve left after his freshman campaign last year, but decided to stay an extra year. Despite being injured for most of the second half of the year, Bruce had a stellar sophomore campaign and is still projected to be a first round pick in the upcoming 2018 NBA draft.

As soon as Bruce posted on his Instagram, social media were buzzing about his announcement. Miami reporters were tweeting heavily about what this meant for both Brown and the Miami’s team next year. The Miami reporters also talked about where Brown could be selected and if there’s still a chance that Brown returns next year.

A few hours after the announcement, The Miami Hurricane, the school newspaper put out an article covering Brown’s declaration for the draft, saying that there is still an opportunity for him to return to UM as well.

The Boston Globe, serving the area where Bruce is from, also put out an article within a few hours of his declaration. They talked about how he has not yet hired an agent, which gives him the opportunity to come back to college.

In general, the sports media and especially coverage in Miami and his home state, did a good job getting stories out as soon as possible as well as going into detail on his current status and his potential to come back to school. In the end, this may or may not be the last we see of Bruce Brown in a Miami jersey.

By JABARI WILBON

Tuesday night was a moment to remember for Canes fans around the world. Through a struggling year for the men’s basketball team, senior guard Jaquan Newton pulled off some magic to upset No. 9 North Carolina on the brink of ACC play.

After Joel Berry from UNC made a game-tying three with four seconds left, Newton got the ball and dribbled up to half court. He made a desperate heave at the buzzer, a one-legged runner, that hit nothing but net. The bench erupted and the crowd was stunned as Miami dog-piled Newton right in front of the UNC crowd.

The Miami Hurricane, the school’s newspaper, had a story up on its website the next morning. The story included a link to footage of Newton’s shot on twitter. The story also covered the game well and talked about this was a must win for the Canes going into the ACC tournament and March Madness. The team had been up and down for a majority of the season, so this was a good confidence booster for them.

Overall, the school’s newspaper did a great job of not only covering the game, but also talking about what this big win means for the team going forward.

The same night, on SportsCenter, the game winning shot from Newton was featured on SportsCenter’s top 10 plays and actually made it to No. 1. SportsCenter did a great job of getting the play out as quickly as possible so that everyone around the world could see it.

Video footage of the play was put all over the Internet, including Twitter, Youtube, and on several different websites. By the next morning, the play could be viewed virtually everywhere and at any time.

This what a great preview for what is to come during March madness. The ACC tournament is set to start in a few days and the Madness begins soon after.

Overall, the news media did a great job covering this, especially the school’s newspaper. They were able to get the story up quickly and link the game winning shot so that it was easy for the reader’s to see it as well.

By JABARI WILBON

The National Basketball Association had its annual All Star weekend and All Star game this past weekend. Instead of having a traditional East vs. West match up, the commissioner decided to change the format of the game. The two players who received the most fan votes, Steph Curry and LeBron James, drafted their teams from the pool of NBA All Stars and created their teams with both Western Conference and Eastern Conference players.

The All Star game had been receiving criticism over the past few years because of lack of competitiveness and lack of intensity from the players, so a change needed to be made. However, as soon as the format was announced back in the winter of 2017, CBS Sports stated in an article.

CBS Sports was reporting on the format change and criticizing it. CBS talked about how the game had always been West vs. East and they shouldn’t change the tradition. CBS also argued how it didn’t even think changing the format in this way would help the players compete harder.

After the game this past Sunday, the league and reporters thought the game was a success. Not only was the game competitive, but it was also close and came down to the final possession.

CBS Sports published a second article almost immediately after the game stating how the new format worked and how it could keep getting better over the next few years. The article went into heavy detail about why the format worked and the reporter did well on explaining the pros and the cons of the format to the reader.

Sports Illustrated also put out an article on Monday morning talking about how the new All Star game was good for the sport overall and how the NBA players’ symbolic value is what’s important to the fans. So, the players needed to play hard in order to show the fans that they do care about their voices and their opinions.

A reporter named Ben Golliver tweeted a graph showing that the 2018 All Star game was the lowest scoring since 2013 and the closest margin since 2012, which means there was a lot more defense being played the players really cared about winning.

Overall, reporters did a good job analyzing and reporting this game especially after all the anticipation and expectations from this new format.

By JABARI WILBON

Usually the trade deadline in the NBA is filled with moves from teams all over the league, but with 24 hours left before the deadline, no significant moves had been made besides Blake Griffin trade bout a week ago.

The Cavaliers made a lot of moves in the last 12 hours before the deadline, essentially revamping their entire team. They traded Isaiah Thomas to the Lakers for Jordan Clarkson and Larry Nance Jr. Dwyane Wade was also traded back to the Miami Heat for a second round pick. Several other smaller moves were made by the Cavaliers later on in the day.

Emmanuel Mudiay was traded from the Nuggets to the Knicks and Elfrid Payton was traded from the Magic to the Suns. Rodney Hood and George Hill were included in deals to Cleveland and will make their debuts for the Cavs in the next few days.

Throughout the shocking chaos during this year’s NBA trade deadline, SportsCenter and other NBA sportswriter did an excellent job following all the action and getting it out to the public almost immediately when deals were finally made. Writers such as Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Stein utilized social media very well, especially Twitter.

They both tweeted early in the day on Feb. 8 which teams were in trade talks and how likely it was that the talks would turn into agreements. They then broke the news immediately about all of the Cavaliers moves, starting with Thomas, the most significant trade deadline move.

Within the afternoon, SportsCenter had covered the trades on broadcast, bringing on Stephen A. Smith within an hour of Isaiah Thomas’ deal. Smith talked about how the trade would effect the Cavaliers and what the future is like for Thomas in Los Angeles. SportsCenter also used Twitter to share the news about the trades around the world.

Articles were posted online as early as 12:45 p.m. on Feb. 8 with analysis and coverage of the trades, almost as soon as they were announced. Overall, reporters utilized social media very well during this hectic time and also getting analyst on SportsCenter as soon as possible.

By JABARI WILBON

On Tuesday night, the Washington Redskins made a shocking trade less than a week before the Super Bowl, acquiring quarterback Alex Smith and sending their current quarterback Kirk Cousins into free agency. According to a report from the Kansas City Star‘s Terez A. Paylor, the Chiefs agreed to the deal on Tuesday afternoon.

According to ESPN’s Field Yates, Smith was traded for Redskins cornerback Kendall Fuller and a third-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft.

At first glance, this deal may not make sense for either sides. But, for the Redskins it was needed more than fans and media expected. Cousins was set to be the highest paid quarterback this upcoming season and the Redskins were going have to pay him that money in order to keep him.

For the Chiefs, this allows them to start Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, their former first round pick last season, who was waiting behind Smith for his moment.

Many reporters took to Twitter to voice their opinions on the trade and to explain what was right and wrong for both teams. Reporters also compared Cousins and Smith as most agreed that they were essentially the same player and the Redskins didn’t get much better.

Adam Schefter, an NFL analyst, reported on Twitter that Cousins and the Redskins haven’t had any contact since the end of the regular season.

If the Redskins were to keep Cousins, they would have had to pay him $34 million. Instead, they’re paying Smith $23 million and for who many think is slightly better than Cousins.

Reporters felt that the Redskins did the right thing, overall, and now understand that Cousins is in the midst of a major pay day for another team.