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Say Hello to NCAA Vault, Adieu to Productivity

• By Erik Malinowski
• March 3, 2010  |
• 9:00 am  |
• Categories: Data, Information Technology

It’s March, which can only mean we’re on the cusp of that Great American Workplace Productivity Suck known as the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Usually, the three weeks of March Madness are passed by updating office-pool rankings, watching split-screen highlights on CBS, and checking if you still qualify for Yahoo’s $1 million grand prize for submitting a perfect bracket.

But today, the college basketball bigwigs have upped the ante. In partnership with Thought Equity Motion, the NCAA has launched the aptly named Vault, which contains full, commercial-free footage of 150 tournament games from the past decade — every Sweet 16 game on to the championship from 2000 through last year. More so, engineers have indexed every game with nearly 6,000 combined metadata tags, so fans can easily filter incredible dunks, blocks, buzzer beaters and more. If you prefer, you can also sort by team, year or player.

More than anything, it’s the blazing-fast video-loading and incredible wealth of metadata that make the site shine. Rather than just dropping in 45-second clips of individually great moments, clicking on a game clip will drop you directly into that moment in that game.

Say you want to relive Mario Chalmers’ game-tying three for Kansas against Memphis in the 2008 championship. When you’re done watching, you can just hunker down and let the game keep playing, on through the end of regulation and then overtime, all commercial-free and with nary a buffer. Of course, the site only works well if you have a large viewing screen, so those users hunched over a netbook or smallish laptop could find themselves constantly scrolling through their browser window while navigating the extensive UI.

The effort kicked off last summer, when Denver-based Thought Equity (which was already working on digitizing the NCAA’s extensive archive) started collaborating with the NCAA on “how to unlock the value of NCAA.com,” says Greg Weitekamp, the NCAA’s director of broadcasting. “For a while, we were very protective of the copyright, and you have to be very careful in terms of allowing all that content out. As our relationship progressed, we started saying, ‘Look, this is a digital world, the content can be out there, and it can help drive your fanbase.’”

The first time he entered the Vault, Weitekamp pulled up the 2007 Sweet 16 matchup between the University of Florida and Butler University, his alma mater. Before he knew it, 45 minutes had gone by and he was officially sucked in. “I thought, ‘Well, if this is happening to me, I can’t imagine how other people are going to love it,’” he says.

Kevin Schaff, Thought Equity’s CEO, likens the Vault’s capabilities to that of a “third generation” of sports-media–archive distribution, following in the path set forth by ESPN Classic and broadband. Both parties say it’s possible that more men’s basketball games — as well as other collegiate sports — could be added to the Vault over time. “The NCAA had the foresight to preserve every second of every game,” Schaff points out, “and that sort of dedication allows these types of effort to come through.”

Of course, the traffic numbers and ad dollars will have a lot of say in whether that expansion comes to fruition. “The business model will have to prove itself,” Weitekamp says. “There’s a lot of resources that have been put into it, and CBS is out there trying to sell out. So if it’s successful, then naturally we’ll expand it.”

But starting today, fans can share Vault highlights with others using direct URLs, as well as having Click to Post functionality built in for Twitter and Facebook users. And with an accessible API, there’s still more potential for the NCAA Vault as time goes on.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I couldn’t respect a guy that spent 1 year in a program and decided to jump ship.  Granted it’s USC…but improve your resume a little bit…right now you look like a job hopper, that hasn’t done anything.  I read some from Stewart Mendel, and he seems to think that USC’s motivation might be to hire someone that is really similar to Pete Carroll.  That’s certainly a good idea from the college’s perspective, they might maintain their level of success without having to go through a coach installing their system and recruiting their players.

I also don’t understand why someone would willing walk into the USC situation right now.  It sounds like they might face some NCAA penalties, but maybe to a program that size it doesn’t really matter.

I haven’t followed NCAA football too closely, there is so much to pay attention to and for whatever reason it just doesn’t interest me like the NFL.  Every year I try to pay attention, but outside of catching the headlines I find myself really not caring.  I blame it on the bowl system.  Outside of your season record, there is really no measure of how you stand up to competition.

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Instead of getting married, these young men that are about to embark into a world that us normal guys will never understand should only be concerned with how to not knock up all the bimbo’s they are about to bang and how to not catch something.  None of these athletes should get married or have kids until their playing days are over.

disgusting.

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Last night we didn’t know how bad the injury really was.  What we did know is that it would have risked his potential draft position and/or entire NFL career if he tried to re-enter the game.  It was the right decision for him career wise and financial wise to not go back in to the game.  I was really pulling for his backup to have a game winning performance.  Coming in for an injured superstar and engineering a win in the championship game would have been an incredible way to start a college career.  In the 2nd half, he had a pretty solid performance…but in the first half he looked like a scared little kid.  There were several poor passes, but there were also quite a few passes right on the mark that his receivers just dropped.

Congratz to ‘bama.  Saban built a championship team fairly quickly.

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If the Notre Dame job wasn’t filled this would seem suspicious.  Given all the work he’s put in at Florida, the repuatation and so forth I wouldn’t think he’d have a problem at all recruiting and keeping things rolling.  Maybe he sees this as an opportunity to go out on top, cash in on some fame and life after football stuff…who knows.

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Since James never went to college, it was mentioned he still may have eligibility remaining if he wanted to try playing college football. There is just the issue of the $90 million shoe contract James signed with Nike before ever playing a game in the NBA.

“What if I gave it all back?” he joked.

The shoe contract aside, lets assume an athlete skips college and goes straight to the pro’s in a sport.  He takes no endorsements, appearance fees etc, he’s only getting paid on his chosen sport contract.  Does he still have college eligibility in other sports?  I was always under the impression once you started taking money for athletics all college eligibility went out the window.  Maybe that’s not the case.

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From the article, it sounds like a player tweeted -after- the “rule” had been put in place.  The article doesn’t go out of it’s way to make that point clear.  If that’s the case…make him run extra or something.  The rule on it’s surface is complete bullshit.  This is simply a case of a coach being a bitch because he lost a god damn football game.

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LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Tweeting is out of bounds for football players at Texas Tech.

Red Raiders coach Mike Leach said Monday he’s banning his players from having Twitter accounts a day after one of his players tweeted that the coach was late for a meeting.

The move comes following Saturday night’s 29-28 loss to No. 12 Houston, and an earlier tweet that led to the suspension of another player.

According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, linebacker Marlon Williams asked on his Twitter feed why he was still in a meeting room when “the head coach can’t even be on time.” That tweet has been deleted.

Offensive lineman Brandon Carter also had a Twitter account. After the loss to the Cougars, he tweeted: “This is not how I saw our season.”

Carter was suspended indefinitely Sunday for violating team rules, and his Twitter page was nowhere to be found.

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What is quite interesting to me is that Calapari has been involved with two schools now that have had wins and final four trips vacated.  How does this guy still have a god damn job?  Pretty ridiculous.

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) –The woman accused of trying to extort Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino approached him in a restaurant six years ago, and the two had sex at a table after closing time, the coach told police.

Two weeks later, the married father of five gave her $3,000 after she said she needed an abortion and didn’t have health insurance, according to a summary of Pitino’s July 12 statement to police. His attorney said Wednesday that the money was to help her get medical coverage, not specifically to pay for an abortion.

University of Louisville President James Ramsey expressed surprise at the new details in the scandal surrounding the coach, a staunch Roman Catholic whose contract includes dishonesty and “moral depravity” as grounds for firing.

“Several months ago, Coach Pitino informed me about the alleged extortion attempt. I’ve now been informed that there may be other details which, if true, I find surprising,” Ramsey said in a statement, adding that his thoughts were with the Pitino family.

Pitino told police he had been drinking at an upscale Louisville restaurant called Porcini in August 2003 when Sypher approached him and asked the coach to call her sons with words of encouragement. The coach obliged, he said.

Later that night, after the restaurant cleared out, the owner left Pitino his keys and they had sex at a table near the bar, according to statements by both Pitino and Sypher.

She said Pitino forced himself on her. But the 56-year-old coach denied Sypher’s allegations that he raped her that night, and again several weeks later, saying she came on to him.

The two apparently weren’t alone in the restaurant: The police documents, first reported by The Courier-Journal of Louisville, says a Pitino assistant was there during the encounter. The former executive assistant, Vinnie Tatum, said he heard “only the sounds of two people that seemed to be enjoying themselves during a sexual encounter,” according to a statement he gave the FBI that was included in the police report.

Sypher reported the rape allegations to police last month, but Kentucky authorities said there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. Sypher, 49, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of lying to the FBI and trying to extort $10 million from Pitino.

Sypher’s attorney, James Earhart, said Wednesday morning that he hadn’t yet talked to Sypher about the release of the police documents.

Pitino told police that about two weeks after he met Sypher, she called to say she was pregnant and that he had to be the father.

According to the report by Sgt. Andy Abbott, commander of the Metro Louisville Police sex-offense unit, Pitino later suggested that the two meet at the condo of the team’s equipment manager, Tim Sypher. She alleges the second assault took place at the condo, but Abbott said records indicate that Pitino was in California at the time.

Karen Sypher, who later married Tim Sypher, first met the manager that day.

Pitino said Karen Sypher told him she was going to have an abortion but didn’t have health insurance, so he gave her $3,000, according to the report. She told police the procedure was done in Cincinnati.

Pitino’s lawyer, Steve Pence, told The Associated Press that the coach believed the money was for insurance, not an abortion. Pence said Pitino asked Sypher how much the insurance would cost and she told him $3,000.

“The way this has been reported in the media is not accurate,” Pence said. “The coach has not done anything illegal.”

Despite Ramsey’s surprise at the new details, the school’s athletic director, Tom Jurich, said in a statement that “Coach Pitino has been truthful with us about this matter all along and we stand by him and his family during this process.”

If Pitino wasn’t forthcoming with his employer, the consequences could be more severe than negative headlines.

His contract, which runs through 2013, lists as possible causes for termination: “Employee’s dishonesty with Employer or University; or acts of moral depravity,” as well as “disparaging media publicity of a material nature that damages the good name and reputation of Employer or University.”

Pitino is a dedicated Roman Catholic who has brought a priest who’s a close friend and spiritual adviser on team trips.

Abbott asked Sypher during one interview why she waited until after she was indicted to report the rape allegations.

She gave varying answers, according to transcripts, saying she wanted to forget about it, that Pitino threatened her and finally that “they kept throwing crumbs to keep me happy.”

Abbott asked Sypher why she was coming forward only after she was charged.

“Because … where we are, it seems like retaliation,” Abbott said.

“I know it does,” Sypher responded.

Tatum, the former executive assistant to Pitino, told the FBI he was in the restaurant during the first encounter but he didn’t see anything. A message Wednesday for Tatum at his office in the university’s basketball practice facility was not immediately returned.

The case became public in April when Pitino announced that someone had tried to extort him. Pitino said he reported it to the FBI, and Sypher surrendered to authorities a few days later when she was named in a criminal complaint.

University sports information director Kenny Klein directed all inquires to Pence. Pitino finished his eighth season with the Cardinals, leading them to a 31-6 record and the Big East regular-season and tournament titles. The Cardinals lost to Michigan State in the regional finals of the NCAA tournament.

Tim Sypher was Pitino’s personal assistant with the Boston Celtics from 1997-2001, then followed the coach to Louisville in 2001. He and Karen Sypher are currently going through a divorce.

Tim Sypher’s divorce attorney declined comment through his secretary.

The criminal complaint said Tim Sypher brought Pitino a written list of demands from his wife, including college tuition for her children, two cars, money to pay off her house and $3,000 per month. The demands later escalated, the complaint said. Tim Sypher has not been charged.

Besides Louisville and the Celtics, Pitino coached the New York Knicks from 1987 to 1989 and the University of Kentucky from 1989 to 1997.

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