By Kate Roth

While flipping through the channels the past couple of weeks you may have noticed something a little out of the ordinary on the ESPN stations, NCAA hockey.

NCAA hockey is not the most popular of the college sporting events and until recently it has received very little media attention.

That is starting to change in a big way this year. This year’s NCAA hockey tournament, also known as the Frozen Four, has had every single game televised on at least one station, many of them appearing on the leader of sports ESPN networks.

This success can be accredited to John Buccigross, a sports anchor for ESPN. John has been trying to push the popularity of college hockey for the past few years and is now finally seeing his hard work pay off. He was even granted the privilege to host a NCAA hockey tournament selection show on ESPN just like the one that is held every year for the NCAA basketball tournament.

I truly believe that college hockey is one of the most exciting sports to watch and fortunately for me, attending Bowling Green State University gives me the opportunity to go and watch that excitement, but for many others there are no teams playing around them so they have no opportunity to watch any games, making it hard for them to be interested in the sport at all.

That is why I think this coverage of the tournament is the best thing that could have ever happened to the sport. People who never get the chance to attend or watch the great game of college hockey have the chance to join in on the excitement now and who knows, maybe they’ll even become big fans of the sport.

I applaud ESPN, all of the other networks televising the tournament, and especially John Buccigross for all the hard work they have put into covering this tournament to bring the excitement back to the Frozen Four. They have done a great job of covering the tournament thus far and I’m sure that will continue on through the final rounds.

BY THYRAN NOWDEN

I dislike how the media isn’t giving the San Antonio Spurs the credit they deserve for having the best record in the NBA.

The San Antonio Spurs are 59-16 this season with 7 games remaining and they are currently on a 19 game winning streak.

The Spurs 19 game winning streak is not only the longest this NBA season, but the longest in San Antonio Spurs’ history.

The media is more focused on how old the Spurs are and how they don’t have enough energy to compete with the other elite teams in the NBA.

The question that is always asked to the media is, can the San Antonio Spurs win the 2014 NBA championship and win a seven game series against teams such as the Thunder, Heat, Pacers, and Clippers?

ESPN analyst Skip Bayless says that the San Antonio Spurs will not win the 2014 NBA championship because they are too old and they can’t compete with the fast tempo teams.

The San Antonio Spurs have the best record in the NBA and the media is still considering them as the underdog to win the NBA championship.

I feel that the San Antonio Spurs are being disrespected because they are consistently one of the best teams in the NBA every season.

If the Heat, Pacers, Thunder, or Clippers had the best record in the NBA, they would be the favorite to win the NBA championship this season since they all have superstars on their teams.

The media should start giving the San Antonio Spurs the credit they deserve because they are playing the best basketball out of every team in the NBA right now and they are going into the playoffs strong.

BY ANTHONY CORNWELL, JR.

I woke up this morning and turned on SportsCenter like every other morning. SportsCenter is supposed to give the most important sport information from around the world.

But today, SportsCenter failed to do that. So I turned to NBC Sports and they failed to do the same. So last but not least I turned to ESPN 2, where Mike and Mike in the Morning was airing and they also failed to talk about an important topic as well.

Will McKamey, 19, a Navy football player, who has been hospitalized since collapsing at practice Saturday, died while in a coma.

For some odd reason the media doesn’t feel that this is important. The most important topic on ESPN is the Miami Heat facing off against the Indiana Pacers for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference; and Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston in the middle of a bench clearing.

The most important topics on NBC Sports are the NFL rule changes, are they good or bad for the sport?

The leading trends on Twitter for Yahoo.com are Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, and Monopoly Rules.

What the media is telling me is that all this kid, McKamey, and his family, deserves is an explanation on the bottom of the screen on an ESPN ticker.

I know all of our sporting networks can do better than this. Just a little bit of coverage on this topic can help save another kid’s life.

BY BRANDON SHRIDER

Over the weekend, the illustrious men’s NCAA basketball tournament got underway. The opening rounds featured notable upsets and predictable victories, but unexpected were the related emotions.

Not surprising were the reactions that an array of seniors exhibited after their losses in the tournament. Many of these seniors were seen in tears, as coaches and teammates comforted them with hugs and encouragement.

However, rather unexpectedly, were the reactions of some of the losing teams’ fans.

A multitude of fans were also seen in tears, but two prominent incidents were made undoubtedly aware by the network, CBS.

CBS chose to pan, on multiple occasions, to fans of both Kansas and Wichita State in which each fan was seen to be in uncontrollable tears.

Why did CBS choose to show these images?

Presumably, CBS wanted to reinforce the narrative that college basketball is an emotionally invested sport in which fans become personally attached to teams, and that the sport provokes passion.

Unfortunately, this action by CBS took away from the players and their commitment on the court.

The illustration of fans provided no valuable information related to the respective games, nor did it benefit the perception of the NCAA tournament.

Numbers Never Lie on ESPN brought to attention this same topic and too, and expressed a similar distaste to the actions of CBS.

Co-hosts Michael Smith and Jemele Hill both stated that while CBS didn’t do anything preposterous, the choice to repeatedly show emotional fans did not advantageously impact the NCAA tournament or its viewership.

Thus, during opening weekend, CBS failed to exhibit a strong sense of sport media and its duty to the public, whereas ESPN was able to address the issue and explain why the actions of CBS were undesirable, unwarranted, and unnecessary.

BY KEVIN JENKINS

UC Santa Barbara and Hawaii played against each other on Thursday night, March 6th, where a fan came onto the court. The fan ran onto the court and confronted Hawaii coach Gib Arnold.

The fan did this once Arnold argued a technical foul with the referee. Once the fan approached the coach, many of the Hawaii players push the fan and told him to exit the game.

A lot of the media has focused on this situation and have asked Arnold numerous questions after the game. Some of the questions I’ve seen on ESPN that were directed to Arnold were based on his reaction towards the fan and why the fan ran onto the court?

Arnold’s responses were basically how in his 22 years of coaching, he had seen nothing like this. He also felt that the fan was probably intoxicated and this could be a reason why he ran onto the court.

ESPN in general has focused on these particular questions, but one question I think should be raised is about the event management. Why was there no security to prevent this situation from happening? There needs to be better crowd control. We have already seen instances like this with the Marcus Smart situation with a particular fan. So in general the media should focus on more of the safety of players and coaches throughout the game.

BY THYRAN NOWDEN

I think the media is doing a great job with hyping up March Madness and making the fans excited to watch the tournament. March Madness is one of the best events in sports because all 65 teams in the NCAA tournament have an equal chance of winning the National championship.

Every year during March Madness there are always upsets during the tournament and there are always a few teams that make a surprise run at the title. This year during March Madness the media is focusing on how there is no favorite to win the National championship and that it is anyone’s game to win.

Every time someone is asked in media about which team is going to win the NCAA tournament a different answer is given every time. ESPN analyst Stuart Scott said that it is difficult to pick which team is going to win the NCAA tournament because there is no dominate team like there has been in past seasons.

I like that the media is not picking a favorite team to win during March Madness because it is making the fans become more open minded when deciding which team will win. Instead of the fans picking the big schools to win such as Duke, Syracuse, Kentucky, and North Carolina, they are going to pick smaller schools to upset the bigger schools since there is no favorite to win.

The media should continue to keep the fans excited during March Madness by telling them there is not a favorite team to win this year’s title and that every team has a chance to win in this year’s tournament.

BY KATE ROTH

the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi were in progress, hockey was all anyone could talk about. But now that the Olympic Games have officially ended it seems as though the sport has fallen off the face of the earth.

It was nice to see all of the media and spectator interest in hockey during the Olympic period, but it would have been even better to see this carry over into the second half of the NHL season.
If you asked the average sports fan when the NHL trade deadline occurred this season I’d be willing to bet that the majority of them would have no clue that it occurred just this past Wednesday. It seems as though the moment the Olympics are over the media stops caring about the sport, which in my opinion is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
There was just a burst of new interest in the sport of hockey created by the Olympic Games and the media needs to use that to its advantage and cover more stories in the sport of hockey and gain more attention.

The media had many new hockey fans eager to learn more about the sport right in their grasp and they let them slip away by neglecting to pay any attention to the NHL. Instead, they focused their attention to the NFL Draft, which is still two months away.

To me it seems as though the media really dropped the ball on this one. This is the perfect NHL season to grab onto since hockey gained some popularity through the Olympics. There are some very tight divisional and wildcard races going on in the league as the season moves towards its end. There were also many great trade rumors and trades made this past Wednesday throughout the league that could have made some great media stories, but instead we got to hear about where every single sports analyst thinks Johnny Football is going to be drafted.

Having the media focus on hockey during the Olympics was great, I just wish it had carried over into the NHL season. It would have been great for the sport of hockey and also have given us sport fans something else to listen to rather than the same old NFL draft stories over and over again.

BY KEVIN JENKINS

The NFL is potentially thinking about implementing a 15-yard penalty rule for the use of the N-word on the field. A lot of the media on ESPN has weighed in on this issue to clarify if they are in favor of the rule or not.

Herm Edwards (ESPN Anchor) explained how he felt the players should be able to take care of this situation themselves. Edwards justified how there are already too many rules in the NFL and he explains how players need to stand up by not saying this word on the field against other players.
Edward’s viewpoint on this situation is that the players need to respect one another. Herm also said when he was a coach in the NFL, that this word had no place in his locker-room. The banning of this racial slur also brings up more topics.

For instance, I’m curious to know why the NFL has not already done this years ago. I’m sure this racial slur has been spoken among other black NFL players since the league started.

Another question to bring up is the possibility of banning all racial slurs on the field. The media and the NFL have focused on this particular word but there are other racial slurs that may be discourteous to another race. So if the media is going to tackle the use of the N-word on the field, they need to address the other racial slurs that are associated with different races.

BY COREY MAXWELL

The Heisman Trophy gives you a certain type of celebrity status and there is no denying that. You win it based on hard work and dedication and no one can take it away from you.
But the attention Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is receiving right now is just a little bit too much.

Winston won the national championship with the Seminoles this past season as a freshman and he deserves attention for that.

But, he also plays outfielder and pitcher for the Florida State baseball team and the attention he is getting for that from media outlets, especially ESPN, is unmerited.

Sportscenter showed highlights from their game and ESPN even tweeted his stat line, which wasn’t even impressive as Winston went 0-2 with a groundout and a strikeout.

Winston’s stats are OK, but not great. Winston played last season as well and finished with a 1-2 pitching record and had a batting average of .235, which again, isn’t too spectacular.

I understand that it’s pretty rare for college athletes to play two sports. You have to be pretty talented to do that, especially at a Division I level.

But it’s not like Winston is the next Bo Jackson. Jackson was a running back and an outfielder for Auburn in the 80s and broke records for both football AND baseball.

Jackson was getting attention for his play, while Winston is only getting this attention because of the recent success he had on the football field. If any other athlete in college played two sports right now I could almost guarantee they wouldn’t get the type of coverage Winston is getting.
I know the baseball season is just getting underway and the media will begin to shift their attention away from Winston after a while, but they shouldn’t have to make such a big deal about it to begin with.