State of the Blog Address: End-of-Season Edition
Posted by kj on Monday, March 31st, 2008
It’s been four months and eight days since this blog sprung into being. During that time:
- I’ve put up 176 posts (1.26 per day on a tempo-free basis!)
- You’ve left 656 comments
- There’ve been over 34,000 hits on the blog
Readership has increased steadily throughout the season–beyond what I could have reasonably expected going into this.
Cannot . . . resist . . . urge . . . to . . . analyze . . . graph: The initial peak was an influx of NC State fans before the game against the Wolfpack. Things petered out a bit over the holidays, bottoming out during my one-week sabbatical in the Caribbean. The second peak was the week of the Purdue game, when a resurgence in conference play was (briefly) in the air. We’ve managed to exceed that peak during the conference and NCAA tournaments.
This last week, the average number of hits per day was over 500, including the first-ever 1,000-hit day as Spartans flooded into from two major MSU message boards to learn about the dribble-drive motion offense. Sadly, the time people spent reading about the DDM offense may have exceeded the time Memphis employed it to put Friday night’s game out of reach.
Thanks to all of you who have stuck around to digest my musings over these months. In particular, I’m appreciative of those who have taken the time to contribute their own thoughts. Regular commenters I can think of at the moment: Spartalytical, Dan, Hubert, Spartanproducer, Wifeofaspartan, Tmadison25, Adam, DMP, Witless Chum, Dr Huxtable, GBbound, NorthernSparty (I know I’m forgetting a few of you here). One of the rewards of doing this has been the chance to exchange ideas with other passionate, informed Spartans like yourselves.
Other things I’ve enjoyed about doing this:
- Having a chance to blow off steam by doing the game recaps after the losses. I think Mrs. Spartans Weblog (marginally) prefers me dashing off to the keyboard, rather than stomping around the house muttering at myself about the Spartans’ ineptitude.
- Being forced to learn a little bit more about basketball than I did before. Writing about something is the best way to force yourself to learn about it. I’m far from being a tactical expert at this point, but I can recognize the 2-2-1 press when I see it now.
- Learning more about how the internet works. There’s all this behind-the-scenes stuff going on (HTML code, pingbacks, PageRank, etc.). It’s been fun picking up internet skills beyond using The Google. (Speaking of which, I’m pleased to note that this blog appears on the first page of Google results for, among others, the following search terms: “spartan basketball blog”, “michigan state basketball blog”, “spartan wonk”, “tempo free statistics”, “third order polynomial”, “goran suton ode”, and . . . “bo ryan looks like mascot”.)
Things that have frustrated:
- Not having enough time to do this as well as I think I could. Ironically, I think my posts end up being longer than they would be otherwise. I end up churning through all the numbers, without taking the time to pare things down to just the key items.
- The way the season went. There weren’t many really great wins for us to revel in (Texas, Indiana on senior day). If things had gone just a bit differently in Indy, we could have partied like it was 1999 on that Sunday night.
- Related: With the team playing at historically inconsistent levels, it was a very hard season to start a statistically-oriented blog. Maybe next year, the Spartans will play with consistency and I can build me a regression model with a super-high R-squared.
Anyway, this isn’t the end. The blog lives on. I do expect, however, that the rate of posting will drop substantially during the offseason. My two great sports passions are MSU basketball and Tigers baseball. These fit together neatly, as the respective seasons cover the entire 12 months of the year without overlapping. To a large extent, then, I’m planning to go back to being a regular, old sports fan over the next seven months–taking in the melodic locutions of Rod Allen, hanging out in the sprawling Detroit Tigers blogosphere, heading down to Comerica Park a few times, and playing wiffle ball in the backyard with the official kids of the Spartans Weblog.
I do intend to post some content over the offseason:
- A review of this past season.
- A look ahead at next season and beyond.
- Statistical inquiry regarding the larger world of college basketball.
- Commentary on breaking developments regarding the MSU and other Big Ten basketball teams.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a few things to say about the Spartan football team. It won’t be anything like the basketball content, though. We’re hoping others pick up that ball and run with it (pun intended). For the most part, I’m sticking to this statement from my introductory post:
What you definitely should NOT expect: Analysis of the MSU football team. I follow MSU football, but (1) I’m just not a huge college football fan, (2) football stats aren’t as elegant as basketball stats, and (3) it’s better to stay focused, I think, on the sport the complexities of which I have some minimal ability to understand.
OK. Enough about me. Let’s hear what you have to say about me. I’d love to hear any suggestions you might have about offseason content, ways to improve the site for next basketball season, whether I should chop my hair for the summer or keep it long . . .
Filed in general, michigan state basketball14 responses so far
14 Responses to “State of the Blog Address: End-of-Season Edition”
Spartalyticalon 31 Mar 2008 at 8:05 am 1Great job all year. I appreciate the commentary far more than that found at most news sites, as well as from the folks who generally stop in. You know I appreciate the numbers, and hopefully I can come up with some things of my own, as well, in the future when I have more time. I look forward to the tidbits through the offseason, and it’s never too early to declare that I’m ready for November!
machanidason 31 Mar 2008 at 9:02 am 2Congrats! I’m sorry that I didn’t find you nearly until the BTT. I had been relying on the Enlightened Spartan and SpartanTailgate for basketball news/analysis. Let’s just say, I don’t think I would have learned anything at all about Memphis’ Dribble Drive Offense from either of those sources.
Also, I applaud the choice to stick with basketball. It may be a quiet 6 months but I think that it will help keep up the high quality.
witless chumon 31 Mar 2008 at 9:25 am 3I loved the site this year, so I wouldn’t recommend changing much.
One thing for the offseason might be to do an in-depth post on each guy expected to contribute next year and what they really contributed this year.
I tend to develop misperceptions of players sometimes based on a few thing that happen and it would be nice for someone not me to do the work of confirming or refuting my impressions.
Another thing I’d be interested in would be tempo-free profile of what we tend to regard as the gold standard of everything around here, the 2000 team.
And you really need to get the Goran Suton Superfans Club off the ground.
Thanks for the insight and entertainment.
MooTheKowon 31 Mar 2008 at 9:49 am 4I also really enjoyed your site this year. I used to be an avid reader of the Big Ten Wonk. Since it went away and was replaced by a site that was less-than-stellar – you’ve basically replaced that as my daily hoops blog. I have to say that all-in-all I think you’ve done a great job. Thanks!
TMadison25on 31 Mar 2008 at 10:46 am 5Great stuff. This blog has been great all season long. The content is accurate and realistic, the user comments (save a few) have been great feedback as well, and this has become at least a daily visit. After moving from Lansing a few years ago, I was upset about losing everything that comes with Spartan basketball (Izzone, Breslin, pre/post-game celebration, local fan support, local media in-depth scoop, etc.). I can still remember camping out when the Cold War game was going on in 2001. Frigid temperature could not keep people from high demand for tickets.
Before I rant anymore, I must say that the postings have been great content and complimented the Spartans’ season nicely. I like to think that I know the team very well, but have found out so much more from kj and everyone else commenting. Thanks again for all of the premium analysis.
As far as the offseason, I agree that keeping it on basketball content is a good way to go. All of the above suggestions for analysis to pass the time sounds great. Perhaps some basic info and discussion on incoming recruits and notifications of signed and verbal letter of intents. Just a thought.
Thanks a million.
DMPon 31 Mar 2008 at 11:52 am 6Well, I hope some offseasons posts come along nicely. The blog is intelligent and well written, so are the group of regular comenters. It’s a nice little corner here to discuss Spartan basketball, and let me tell I sorely needed a site like this. Other Spartan sites aren’t filling the gap this fills for me. It is nice coming here and finding out that I am not going crazy and other people are seeing things I’m seeing, and that other people have better insight to help me. Lord knows TV announcers and the Detroit Free Press won’t be the ones with the insight. The “Pitino Test” indeed.
Being isolated in Seattle, it is very nice to have a conversation here rather than stomping around yelling at the TV while my wife looks on in disbelief. Thanks for the hard work, kj.
Huberton 31 Mar 2008 at 12:43 pm 7I agree with the above comments — Great job, KJ, and a very nice addition to the blogosphere, particularly for us isolated Spartan fans no longer in the EL area, who don’t want to weed through all the flaming and inane patter on the different chat sites. College basketball is basically the only sport I follow with any knowledge or enthusiasm, so the off season seems awfully long — so I will certainly be a willing consumer of your off season offerings.
I agree that a statistical comparison of different spartan teams over the last ten seasons would be great. For example, I suspect Izzo teams have generally had a tendency to turn overs, in the same way that they usually shoot foul shots pretty well, but I am simply not sure that my memory is not playing tricks on me. Analysis and information on recruiting would similarly be great, though statistical analysis may not produce much light, given how bad the recruiting services are at predicting college performance.
But in general, Great job and keep up the good work — I will continue to read with interest!
kjon 31 Mar 2008 at 1:40 pm 8The historical statistical analysis of MSU basketball teams is a good idea. I’ll add that to the list.
Spartalyticalon 31 Mar 2008 at 1:54 pm 9Jeez, homework over the summer?
Danon 31 Mar 2008 at 5:10 pm 10I started reading the Wonk last year; Basketball Prospectus just hasn’t been as good (probably because he can’t watch as much of any one team or conference as he did before), so this is my top site for college hoops. Almost all the other sports blogs I read are college football (Sunday Morning QB, Every Day Should Be Saturday, and a few random Big Ten blogs).
This has definitely helped me keep up with the Green and White now that I’m in grad school elsewhere.
spartanproduceron 31 Mar 2008 at 7:58 pm 11not too much to add other than, thanks for the great site and hard work (and a few statistical nuggets I could drop into conversation) and to everyone who provided calm, rational discussion (instead of screaming that the game has passed Izzo by every time we lose).
Unfortunately it’s six and a half months until practice starts, though I too switch my emotional energy to baseball (albeit the North Siders from Chicago, which makes a few losses to Wisconsin seem like nothing!!). But with lots of returning talent, a great coach, what should be a fun schedule (Kansas and Texas at least) and more statistical breakdown, I can’t wait!!
GO GREEN!!
Spartalyticalon 01 Apr 2008 at 10:09 am 12IU takes another tumble.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/p...../804010342
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