1) Look to the top of the screen and you might notice that our banner has changed. Gone are the gaudy lime green letters, and gone is the man with two dicks in his name (Dick Dickey – I must admit I miss him on our banner). Now we’ve gone blue. The reason for this is that Run the Floor is now one of six feature blogs at Bloguin, and the only one that covers basketball (alright, to be fair, Crossover Chronicles is a really solid blog, but they cover the NBA, and if you’ve been following the NBA then you get my point). But that’s not the only change.
2) Look to your right. All of the ACC-centric lists of National Champions and whatnot? Gone. Why? Well, we don’t only cover the ACC anymore. Now we’ve gone national. This doesn’t mean that you won’t get the same ACC coverage, it’s just that you’ll get a lot more (see #3) of what’s happening in the rest of the country. Yes, I’m still going to mention five times a year how Mark Gottfried called Wake recruits the day after Skip Prosser’s tragic death. And yes, I’ll still harp on the boring systems brought in by the gaggle of new ACC coaches. Leonard Hamilton is still the only black head coach, and yes, the ACC still rules, even though it’s probably the fourth best conference at the moment. As managing editor of the new Run the Floor I had that put into my contract: the ACC is awesome even when it’s not.
3) Look to your right a second time. Now there is a list of staff. Tired of reading my crap with the occasional post by our musician-in-chief Steve Scales Jr? Well, read crap no more, as three new writers are coming on board. The weird thing is that the braintrust at Bloguin asked me to make a list of writers I’d want – which I did – and these three guys are all from the A-List. In other words, these guys are solid. They aren’t writers who are focusing on basketball, but rather basketball guys who are focusing on writing. If you want a better understanding of the game, and how to interpret it, Run the Floor is your place. Here, get to know the new writers:
Up first is Andy Bottoms. While Andy was born and raised in Indiana , he would like to point out that he grew up shooting hoops in his driveway and not against the side of a barn like you see in all the March Madness promos or in the middle of a field like Jimmy Chitwood. Since 2003, he has provided fantasy football and baseball content for a number of sites, some of which has been syndicated on SI.com and Yahoo. However, his true passion has always been college hoops. In addition to his work at Run the Floor, Andy writes about college basketball for MidwestSportsFans and hosts the Bottoms Line podcast with the guys from Ballinisahabit. Previously he provided college hoops content for RotoExperts and hosted a weekly podcast with John Gasaway of Basketball Prospectus. When not compiling excuses for missing work during the NCAA Tournament, Andy enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters. He is a proud IU graduate who is glad to see the basketball program on the rise, still watches old game tapes of Calbert Cheaney, and would pay good money to punch Kelvin Sampson in the face.
Chris Burrows has blogged about college hoops for several outlets over the last few years, shunning silly stats like RPI and points per game the whole way. He’s working towards his master’s in journalism at DePaul University, but spends his Saturdays taking in basketball at the smaller schools around Chicago. He founded the UIC hoops blog Fanning the Flames and has contributed to the Chicago College Basketball blog. He also covers preps and professional athletics for the suburban Northwest Herald newspaper. Currently he runs Horizon League Hoops. Oddly enough, he doesn’t like coffee. But don’t hate.
Last (lastly?) is Daniel Bonsall. Dan went to U of Richmond, and now blogs about the Spiders at Spider Bandwagon. His earliest college hoops memory is watching Eric Murdoch and the Providence Friars torch Holy Cross in Worcester, and he fell in love with basketball thanks in part to annual Hoosiers viewings before the start of Little League baseball season (In case you’re counting, that’s two Hoosiers references amongst the new writers, which aught to be enough to bookmark this place if you already haven’t). His favorite non-hoops team is the Boston Red Sox and he lives in Spokane, WA with Dr. Spider and their dog. Dan is three time-zones away from his alma-mater, and writing about basketball is his grip.
And then there’s me, who you know, unless you don’t: Michael Rogner, founder of Run the Floor and basketball writer for Tomahawk Nation. Before you judge the bitterness in what I write, bear in mind that I have to watch the Seminole offense about 30 times a year. Do the same before you throw stones.
We’re excited to be together as a team. We’re grateful to have you along. And most of all, we’re looking forward to talking hoops.
