Open letter to the The Bozo Daily Comical

[mslacat]

Basketball exists at Montana State University

The actually have both Men's and women's teams

Links

http://www.msubobcats.com/sports.php?sid=mbb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.msubobcats.com/sports.php?sid=wbb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[msusportsinfo]

What did I miss in the Chronicle?

[TIrwin24]

I'm confused...What happened?

[GOKATS]

'fraid I didn't get it either. I think the Chronicle has been doing an increasingly better job of covering all Bobcat sports, and especially have thought that MBB and WBB received equal coverage. I'm not sure what the originator of the threads' agenda is.

[duelalumnicat]

Mslacat, I am also confused?

[msusportsinfo]

Where is mslacat? I need closure.

[HelenaCat]

My guess is that Mslacat is bothered by the fact that the Chronicle has not written one article on either the Bobcat men's or women's teams since they lost their last games of the year. Most other college town newspapers (see Missoulian) would have followed up by now with an analysis of the year and the prospects looking forward to the next year. Nothing but silence from the Chronicle. hopefully this changes once Will is back!

[feb]

I agree. The Chronicle's reporting on the cats has a big drop off when Will is gone.

[GOKATS]

I guess I just don't see what the big deal is. The season is over, both teams received great coverage in the Chronicle in my opinion all the way to the end (and I have absolutely no clue what the potshot at BobcatAthletics.com might have been) - what the hell is there to report? Nothing is happening until next fall except for maybe a little recruiting news, coaching moves, etc. I don't get the bitch...........

[Will_Holden]

Basketball exists at Montana State University

The actually have both Men's and women's teams

Links

http://www.msubobcats.com/sports.php?sid=mbb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.msubobcats.com/sports.php?sid=wbb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sorry to disappoint you mslacat, but had we devoted any of our diminished man-power to Bobcat basketball in the wake of their seasons, I believe the response from many of our readers would have been "basketball exists at the high school level." I did my best to cover both team's runs late in the season and I'll have more on each run later this week (video highlights from each team's tournament runs), but we also have a responsibility to cover high school runs of our local teams (Bozeman, Shields Valley, Belgrade, etc.) and tournaments in our own backyard (Class B state tournament at MSU), which is what I was doing after I finished the drive back from Ogden and Missoula in the days before I left on a vacation on March 17.

My vacation came at a very inopportune time for the paper, considering it took place right after we lost a writer, but I made arrangements for it months in advance with the idea that we'd still have a full staff to be able to do things like season recaps and couldn't really change it last minute.

Hopefully we can get another writer on board soon, but in the meantime, I'm back in town and I'll do my best to try and pick up the apparent slack.

[HelenaCat95]

Welcome back Will.

[tetoncat]

Welcome back Will. A couple comments since you brought up the coverage of the State tournaments. I was dissapointed in that coverage. The Tribune who covered every game of the Class A in detail, and covered the local teams in the AA, and also had their sports editor in Bozeman for Class B. I thought you had a nice article on the Championship game, but Friday's paper did not have the boxscores of all 4 games from Thurs. I think you got 3 of the 4. sat. the paper again talked about 3 of the 4, with one of the semi finals not getting a box score and very little written about it.

It does not seem out of line to have a reporter there, or at least get someone to fax the computer generated box scores they had in the hospitality room, do a little research and write up a little article. This is two years in a row that the class B has been in this area and the coverage has been very poor. The Gazette did a lousy job as well. The Tribune actually promoted travelers to buy their papers why they were in Bozeman and Butte and where they could get them because they were going to be covering those tourneys.

On the positive side your coverage of the Bobcats has been a huge improvement and i really enjoy going on line and reading your blogs and articles.

[4everacatfan]

For those of you that do not have to get your news on the web - paper it may be different. I have been sitting on this all season and now feel that the Chronicle needs to take a look their web section on the Cats the Basketball pictures that are on there are from the 2007 - 2008 season and it might be nice if they over the spring gave us some pictures from this past season as well.

[SonomaCat]

Of course, if we are relying only on the free web content of the Chronicle, we are getting way, way, way more than we are paying for.

When the time comes that newspapers all start charging for online access, it will be interesting to see how many people agree to pay for these services and how much better the content will become when the newspapers are actually able to make money doing it (as opposed to essentially doing a lot of pro bono work for the masses).

[msusportsinfo]

I subscribe to the Chronicle online--dropped the paper version--and I get the whole paper--everything including ads. I think it is a bargain at $4.95/month. I don't have any paper to deal with anymore. And incidentally, you won't find anyone that works harder at it than Will Holden.

[SonomaCat]

I subscribe to the Chronicle online--dropped the paper version--and I get the whole paper--everything including ads. I think it is a bargain at $4.95/month. I don't have any paper to deal with anymore. And incidentally, you won't find anyone that works harder at it than Will Holden.

I use that as well ... it works really well for me (not that I have the option of the hard copy, but even if I did I would go with the online version to keep my recycle bin from filling up so fast).

So I strongly recommend it as well ... it's cheap and you get 100% of the content.

[mslacat]

OK I will apologize to the Bozeman Chronicle. May be I should have used a smaller font. The Bozeman Chronicle did do a great job covering Bobcat basketball during the season, almost as good as the Missoulain covers the Griz, but my problem is that as soon as the season ended and spring football started once again basketball got dropped like a hot potato. Yes I do expect a season wrap up from the home town newspaper. This was standard operating procedure almost every year, but somehow or for some reason the Chronicle decided 3 years ago that once the final horn sounded on the last game basketball was done with, basketball is never to be heard again until football was over in the fall. There are some compelling issues facing both MSU team at the completion of the season.

-What will next years Big Sky Conference look like?
-Which coaches will leave or stay?
-Will the men's run at the end of the season be able to carry over to next year?
-With one senior off of the men's team what do we expect from the Cats?
-Where does Huse think his program is after his first three years as coach (a traditional measuring stick for college coaches)?
-How bad is Bobby Howard's knee?
-What are the recruiting priorities for the programs?
-Will Binford get any job looks interviews this year?
-With the Bobcat women bring in 7 freshman this year what will they be able maintain and build on this years success
Does this represent a major shift in recruiting priorities?
-What are the major concerns that the coaches have for each program for next year and which need to be handled by recruiting and which with existing resources?

These are just a handful that I regurgitated up while I sit hear at my desk. I am sure there are many more and some that are a lot better than what I have come up with. And no you can not answer all of these with out doing a 5 part series but I am sure a couple could be addressed and your readership would find them useful.

To BAC's point about getting the Chronicle for free on the net. I assume the logical extension to the argument should I should be happy to get what I get. The thing is I am not upset that "I" did not get an article(s) on the Bobcat basketball programs, because you know I have a pretty good idea about what is going on. Not everything but more than the average bloak. I get upset because, MSU basketball, gets treated like a third class citizen. If we don't have any football to report on, maybe we can get around to it. The Bozeman Chronicle is a local paper I do not think I am too far out of line in what I expect.

Here are two very good wrap ups of the two closet Big Sky conference schools to Bozeman

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009 ... orts01.txt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.journalnet.com/articles/2009 ... ocal/1.txt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[duelalumnicat]

I agree with mslacat. We subscribe to the Chronicle, and I read the hard copy every morning. Other than the article about Hennessy, I do not recall the Chronicle saying much about MSU basketball since the season ended. Now since mslacat posted his talking points, maybe (hopefully) the Chronicle will run with the article. I would have no problem with a five part series.