Sports Journalists -- The Gift that Keeps On Giving

by Glenn Logan on Dec 20, 2007 10:02 AM EST in Media

Every day I read hundreds of stories in my feed reader. Some good, some bad, some right and some wrong. Thank God for sportswriters -- they can lighten my day even when, like my fellow members of the Faithful, I am wandering about aimlessly in the desert of basketball desire.

One of the great lessons I have learned as a blogger is that before you begin mocking what someone else said, make darn sure you have all your own facts straight. Nothing is more embarrassing than mocking someone for something only to find that one small part of your proof was mistaken. It destroys your entire argument, regardless of the validity of it. There is no recovery.

Comes now Patrick Reusse of the Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin. Today, Patrick decides to take on Kentucky "wackos" that continue to blame Tubby Smith for the current struggles of the Wildcats. We all have our opinion on that -- some of us agree with the "wackos," and some of us, including yours truly, not so much.

But Mr. Reusse, in his effort to prove his point, gives us this:

What's interesting with these Wildcats wackos is that, in their world, Gillispie gets the credit for recruiting Patterson, even though he had made a verbal commitment to Kentucky and started to vacillate only after Smith found a new home in Minneapolis.

Smith also had a verbal commitment from Jai Lucas, who reneged after Tubby's departure and is now a freshman starter at point guard for Florida. [Emphasis mine]

Just think, my Big Blue brothers and sisters, all this time we have labored under the apparent misconception that Patrick Patterson and Jai Lucas waited until the last minute to give their commitments, and neither of them gave verbals. Mr. Reusse has just broken some serious news here, because every other sportswriter in the entire universe (or at least, on this planet) who followed the situation was unaware of these "verbal commitment[s]" from Lucas and Patterson.

But apparently, a sportswriter from a little-known publication in cold reaches of Minnesota who probably never knew Kentucky had a basketball program until Tubby Smith signed on the dotted line now tells us that Tubby had commitments from both Patterson and Lucas. Further, he assures us that both worthies only reneged, or in the case of Patterson, "vacillate[d]" on their "commitment" after Smith, Moses-like, was consigned to his fate in the frozen wastes of the North by the Pharaohs of Kentucky.

Paging Billy Donovan -- Tubby Smith on line 1.

There is more, of course, to mock in this "story." It is almost as outrageous and over-the-top as he imputes to the guy on Wildcat Nation, which he doesn't even bother to link.

Ah, the sportswriters. The Scarecrow's song from The Wizard of Oz was surely written with them in mind, even before the Information Age.

Update [2007-12-20 18:40:23 by Truzenzuzex]: PJS sent me an email noting that Patrick Reusse actually writes for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and links our blog with a couple of comments of his own.

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Comments

How the times have changed...

It's precisely articles like this and many others that have broken in the past year that has led me to get my daily sports news fix from blogs and not so called journalistic sports sites. I have always understood the dangers of reading blogs and have learned to filter what I read very carefully. I never thought I would have to do that with "more official" sites and really have decided that though I have the skill set to do so, why bother? I just hope others realize that you can never trust implicitly anything that you read anywhere. Always check it out. My girlfriend called me the other day to tell me that she had won a lottery in England. I asked her how she knew this. She said she got an email. Now, in her defense, she only checks email or uses the internet 3 or 4 times a year. She has not developed the BS detector that I have over years and years of rifling through spam and email filth. Unfortunately I fear that many readers of these sites will be in the same boat.

by hoopchi on Dec 20, 2007 11:10 AM EST reply actions

Hey,...

...I have won hte United Kingdom lottery several times also. :)

by Ken Howlett on Dec 20, 2007 5:42 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah....

I hear the prize is super effective large but they really mess you over on the exchange rate.

by hoopchi on Dec 20, 2007 8:34 PM EST up reply actions

LOL!

by Ken Howlett on Dec 20, 2007 8:43 PM EST up reply actions

frozen tundra of mn

This guys is nuts sounds like to many hockey sticks to his head over the years . He needs to quit writing about something he knows nothing about, Basketball at KY. GO CATS

by sgray62 on Dec 20, 2007 11:30 AM EST reply actions

Haha, Tru

We all know that Minnesota folks know that Kentucky has a basketball program. They just thought it was just in Western Kentucky.

The Online Home of the Big Blue Nation...

by TheFakeGimelMartinez on Dec 20, 2007 11:32 AM EST reply actions

That's it!

by Glenn Logan on Dec 20, 2007 11:57 AM EST up reply actions

Revisionist ?

After reading the article written by the journalist (?) in Minnesota,I wonder where I was last year during the recruiting of Patterson and Kucas,and then with Coach Smith's abrupt resignation.His account of these events are not at all as I remember them,and seems like a feeble attempt to rewrite history.
And,whats with this Kentucky fans are "wacko" bit?

I'm not crazy or wacko,nor are all those great Kentucky fans who love and care for UK sports so much

.If we are "wacko",what would you call the journalist who wrote this piece of trash?

by UKats on Dec 20, 2007 1:37 PM EST reply actions

"Incompetent" comes to mind ...

by Glenn Logan on Dec 20, 2007 2:16 PM EST up reply actions

My take is

that UK basketball still must be significant. Why else would national sportswriters keep taking their shots?

I truly do not understand how anyone could say that a majority of UK's current woes are not because of Tubby's poor recruiting system. UK's problem is lack of superior talent and UK is playign with the talent Tubby brought in.

In the end, it really doesnt matter. BCG is not going anywhere anytime soon. As DeCourcy points out things will change after these growing pains....

by BeatUL on Dec 20, 2007 4:42 PM EST reply actions

Mrs. Reusse

What an idiot.

It's crap like this dishonest, factually incorrect, "article" that makes people like Mike Gundy go bezerk.

I come from the Bob Knight, Steve Carlton, Jim Rice school of sports journalism: Screw 'em.

While all sports journalists are not nincompoops, a high percentage are. If doctors held the same incompetency rate as sports journalists our morgues would be overflowing with premature deaths.

by Ken Howlett on Dec 20, 2007 5:54 PM EST reply actions

Reusse

is a blowhard. I live in Minnesota, I've read his stuff and heard him on the radio for years. He caters to a Minnesota-only crowd and he plays up this northern attitude that everyone who lives in the South are idiots and racist.

He wouldn't know your recruiting problems from his hemorrhoids and he's counting on the idea that his reader base wouldn't either.

Go Big Red Nebraska!
Corn Nation!

by cornnation @ A Sea Of Blue on Dec 21, 2007 12:51 AM EST reply actions

Thanks

Thanks for the insight.

I'm sure his in-box is full of Christmas greetings from the Bluegrass State.

by Ken Howlett on Dec 21, 2007 2:10 AM EST up reply actions

Thanks ...

I really don't mind him taking shots at our "wackos", God knows we have some.

But when he goes and makes factual errors to prove his point, I have to take exception. Even our "wackos" deserve to have the facts presented against them possess the virtue of truth.

Thanks for stopping by. Always glad to see my SB Nation brothers and sisters in here.

by Glenn Logan on Dec 21, 2007 7:05 AM EST up reply actions