I finally got around to cleaning up the design of the site. I was sick and tired of the old design and this one is a lot more clean and flexible. Also figured there wouldn’t be a better time to update than right before a new season before we start diving into preview stuff. The header will of course be updated with the new court look as soon as I can get my hands on a picture.
There are a couple nice little tweaks like AJAX comments and an improved archives system that come along with the new design (powered by K2). It will be a process making sure everything works for everyone the way it is supposed to but I think in the long run it will be better. Please let me know any problems you find with the new design by email or through the comments.
I am also open to suggestions for coverage of the team in the upcoming season and overall direction of the site. One thing I have been considering is experimenting with a UFR-style analysis of some more important games this season. Let me know about any suggestions or what you want to see more of, less of, or what you want to stay the same.
One final note, I have to thank one of our commenters, Ben, for his hard work helping me out with the new design. He was there to help me with every little tweak until 2am to get this stuff live.
wow the new format is great
Dude, the new site looks awesome. Good work.
Some general thoughts on the site:
— Like the new layout and format.
— I did like having the “comments header” below the posts rather than above. Seems a little more cluttered this way, but I can get used to it.
— I would make your logo larger in the header of the site.
— I was already wondering how an UFR would work for basketball. The number of plays would be daunting, as would the frequency of games. Without someone to help I don’t think you could do it to the level of MGoBlog and football. But I would LOVE to read more about play-by-play situations in games. Maybe you could pick specific games to do it with and break it up into 2-4 different posts over a couple of days.
One of the things I absolutely loath about college basketball is the officiating. Even worse than that is the fact that the broadcast almost never questions or reviews the calls. The pace of the game dictates this to some extent, but if anyone stopped to analyze game film they’d see just how bad the refs are.
Also, with Beilien’s offense I’d be really curious to see the method behind what’s going on. A UFR would help us uneducated types understand what is orchestrated and what is just playground basketball without a plan.
I’d love to also see the +/- for players, though that will take some fine tuning over time.
Ah, I just noticed there is no comments link under the post. I’ll add something down there.
Man, that header pic really shows the “old” Crisler floor in all its glory… looks more like a dungeon than a basketball arena. I agree that you should make the “UM Hoops” logo bigger, and maybe a more exciting font. Other than that and the court picture, looks good.
Good work Dylan
You are the one that deserves credit.
Great job so far. I would love a UFR, but maybe stick to more important possessions. Especially before half and the last 5 minutes of close games. Too much detail of each play would make it difficult to sift through. Of course reading is not hard compared to generating the content, so whatever you decide upon will work for us.
Also, is there are donation request anywhere. I would be willing to help with the cause if it meant you can make regular, in depth contributions. There is no other site like it.
I can only imagine that a UFR type game analysis would be incredibly difficult for a basketball game. If you can pull off anything that comes remotely close to coherent I’ll be impressed. The new site looks and feels great. You can tell that you’ve put a lot of work into it. I don’t know what your traffic is, but you should look into a liveblog like Brian is doing at MGoBlog with the WLA moderating it. I’ve moderated one of the games thusfar and it has been a lot of fun. If that is something you’d be interested you could get in touch with Brian or the WLA (we’ve been doing the moderating) at wolverineliberation@gmail.com. That could be a pretty great feature. Or just get in touch with me at my email. Good luck on the upcoming season.
Also, I agree with the comment above. The old court looks so archaic and awesome. I’d love to see what it would look like with the new court, but for now the banner looks like a great representation of the team itself; optimistic and hopeful, but barebones.