The Inside the Hall Pick’em Challenge is back. Just like last year, we’ve set up a group over at Yahoo! where you’ll be able to compete against other ITH’ers for bragging rights.

Just like last year, the group is public, so let friends and family know about it. The more, the merrier. Have fun out there, kids. (If the first group fills up, we’ll open a second group and so on as needed.)

With that said, any orders placed until the end of the February will receive a 10% discount by entering the promo code “insidethehall” at checkout. (Note: The discounted prices will not show until payment information is entered. You will then be able to review your order, with the discount applied, before submitting.) Below is a photo of the crimson men’s t-shirt. Thanks in advance for your support and as always, thanks for reading.

Inside the Hall apparel at Project571

In fact, many of you probably won’t even notice. With the way my non-ITH work has bundled in the last few months, I haven’t made much of a contribution to this fine site in a while. And now, thanks to a new job blogging college basketball at ESPN.com, I can safely linger on the fringes no more. I must leave.

It’s not like the site will suffer. In three years, Alex and Ryan have made Inside The Hall the absolute best place on the planet to find college basketball news and analysis. To my mind, Alex is the best recruiting filter on the Internet (and he’s free, too, as if you hadn’t noticed). His work in building this site through the long offseasons — and these past few offseasons have been long, folks — has been and is paying off. This site is a wonder. Meanwhile, Ryan is one of the more incisive observers of basketball (college and pro) working. I mean, Good Bad And Ugly gets posted like five minutes after the game is over, and it’s better than anything I can think of with 24 hours to spare. You, the reader, will be just fine.

But I am sad to leave, and I hope you’re slightly sad too. I also hope, whether you enjoyed The Dagger at Yahoo! or not, you’ll come read me at ESPN.com, if for no other reason than sometimes Kentucky fans are big meanies, and I need y’all to have my back. (Just kidding. I love all college hoops fans, no matter their creed or code.)

Anyway, farewell. I hope you had as much reading my ramblings here as I had writing them. I’d say I’d miss the site, but hell, I’ll still be reading everyday. I’m right around the corner. So, as with Alex and Ryan, this isn’t goodbye. It’s see you later.

See you later, ITH.

We are pleased to announce that we’ve teamed with our friends at Project571 to begin offering Inside the Hall apparel. Project571, founded by IU graduate Michael Wheeler, is the nation’s only eco-friendly college apparel company. Translation: They’re green. The t-shirts are made from 100% organic cotton and the sweatshirts are made from organic cotton and recycled polyester. It’s quality, quality stuff.

For starters, there’s a gray t-shirt with crimson lettering, a crimson t-shirt with white lettering and a light gray pullover sweatshirt with crimson lettering. We expect to add more designs and more products in the future.

You can check out the apparel by clicking here. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your support.

]]> http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/11/16/and-then-there-was-a-shirt-and-a-sweatshirt-too/feed/ 2 http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/10/26/state-of-the-hall-october-26-2009/ http://www.insidethehall.com/2009/10/26/state-of-the-hall-october-26-2009/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:54:24 +0000 Staff http://www.insidethehall.com/?p=3954 The latest “State of the Hall,” which we’d like you to read, is after the jump.

When we opened up the site for donations back in the spring, it was based on feedback we received on our reader survey that indicated that over 40% of you would be willing to contribute. We had few donations initially and since then, haven’t really mentioned it further on the site.

A couple of things to point out:

- The site is free for everyone to read. Some of the information we publish is considered to be “premium” elsewhere. We began with a goal of building a community that would be available to and resonate with all IU fans and we feel like it’s been mission accomplished so far. To date, we’ve had over 34,000 comments and we’re on target for our best traffic month ever this month. We’re thankful for the 23,000 of you who read us each month.

- Yes, we run ads on the site. And you’re probably asking, why ask for donations if you run ads? This is a three-part answer:

1) The ads help us maintain the site: server costs aren’t cheap and we might need to upgrade very soon due to growth.
2) The ads help put a little bit of change (ITH isn’t full-time for any of us, we do have jobs) in our pockets for the time we invest to author and maintain the site.
3) The feedback we received suggested that some of you would like to show your support by donating.

Plans for the season:

With the season about to tip-off, we wanted to pass along our plans for coverage this season. We will be covering select home games in-person for the first time. Since none of us live in Bloomington, there will be an expense associated with this. We also plan to bring back ‘Good, Bad and Ugly’ and ‘The Morning After.’ And ‘Film Session’ could also make its triumphant return from time-to-time as well when warranted.

Additionally, we would like to travel around the state to watch and bring you video content and interviews from some of Indiana’s recruiting targets. Among those we’d like to see: Cody Zeller, Matt Carlino, Austin Etherington, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera and others. Again, there is a cost associated for us to provide this type of coverage.

Where you come in:

Collectively, the best way for us to make all of this happen is to ask for your support. We’re not asking for a monthly donation and by no means should you feel obligated. We’ve decided the best way to approach this is essentially have a “donation drive” once before the season starts and then another one in the spring/summer for AAU. Consider the “donation drive” to be underway.

If we’re able to garner the support needed, we’ll be able to deliver on much of what we outlined above and that’s what we’re hopeful will happen. If that isn’t the case, we’ll be limited on what we are able to do and will likely implement some changes.

If you’re able to contribute, please click the Make a Donation button in the top right corner next to the search bar. We look forward to your feedback and questions.

The Pick to Click, for Inside the Hall purposes, is your opportunity to select a player each game that you feel will perform the best based on a simple formula we’ve created. There will be a post for each regular season game where you’ll have the opportunity to select your Pick to Click in the comments. Postseason play, conference tournament games and exhibition games will not be tracked.

For each game you select the player who ends up being the Pick to Click, you’ll get one point. Picks must be posted in the comments at least 15 minutes prior to tip-off and you’re only eligible to select one player per game. At the end of the season, whoever has the most correct picks over the course of the season will receive a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com. And bragging rights, too. If we have more than one leader at the end of the season, we’ll split up the prize accordingly.

Now, for the formula. Each player will be assigned a point value after each game based on the following criteria:

• 2 points for each point scored
• 2 points for each rebound
• 2 points for each assist
• 1 point for each steal
• 1 point for each blocked shot
• - 2 points for each turnover

For example, if a player finishes with 10 points, six rebounds, one assist, two steals, two blocks and five turnovers, his “value” will be calculated as follows: 10 (2) + 6 (2) + 1 (2) + 2 (1) + 2 (1) + 5 (-2) = 28. Simple math.

If two (or more) players end up with the same point value, ties will go to the player with more made free throws in that game. If neither player makes a free throw or there’s also a tie in that category, the tie will be broken by looking at field goal percentage for each player in that game. The higher field goal percentage wins.

We’re pretty excited about this and since we’re still over a month away from the season tipping off, if you’ve got any suggestions or feedback, let’s hear it in the comments.

+ Commenting: As the Disqus service continues to evolve, the commenting system here at ITH continues to improve. You’ve probably noticed some changes in the look and feel of comments, but the core elements are still intact. If you’re not signed up with Disqus, we highly encourage you to do so. The option to comment with Twitter, Facebook or an OpenID account is also available.

A couple of tools we’d like to see utilized more often: 1. If you enjoy a particular comment, use the “like” button. This helps commenters build a reputation for posting solid comments. 2. If you notice a comment that you feel is inappropriate, use the “flag” link. This will not remove a comment, but it will alert us to review it.

As we get closer to the season, we’ll be seeking your input on whether you’d like to see the live blogs continue or shift back to a traditional game thread with real-time commenting.

+ Twitter: Our account continues to grow as we recently surpassed the 1,000 follower mark. This is an excellent resource to pick up interesting links and/or comments from us that might not make it on the site. We’ll also have some prizes to give away throughout the season via Twitter.

+ New Design: Initially, we had mixed feedback on our new look, but now that everything has been ironed out, the “new” ITH is more user friendly and is also more friendly for your Web browser to load.

+ Advertisers: We would like to thank Joe’s Bar on Weed Street in Chicago and T.I.S. Bookstore/IUGear.com for their continued support of Inside the Hall. If you’re able to support either of these businesses in any way, we encourage you to do so. For our readers in Chicago, we hope to put together a gathering this season at Joe’s. Additionally, we’d love to hear from you if you’re interesting in advertising on the site.

+ Ryan at ESPN.com: If you’re a regular over at the Worldwide Leader, we encourage you to do a search and read some of Ryan’s work on the Jock-O-Sphere.  Or you can just click here.

+ Spread the Word: The best way to continue to grow our community is by word of mouth. Whether it’s passing along the ITH name to a friend in conversation or by sending an email to a friend with our URL, anything you can do to help spread the word is appreciated.

+ Donations: Thanks to everybody who has been able to contribute to the site. We do realize that donating is not realistic for everybody, but your support is appreciated. The site will continue to be a free resource as it’s always been, but the costs and time to maintain ITH are at times significant. We also made an effort over the spring and summer to make it AAU events like the adidas May Classic, Kentucky Hoopfest and the It Takes 5ive Classic and would like to continue to be able to make similar, if not more, trips in the future. To make a donation, simply click the “Make a Donation” button near the top right corner of the site.

Thanks for your continued readership and support. If you have any questions or thoughts, please sound off in the comments or drop us a line at info@insidethehall.com.

For those of you who haven’t kept track of our birthday (shame, shame), Friday marks the two-year anniversary of the launch of Inside the Hall. What started small has grown into a community that all three of us are proud to be apart of.

The focus of the site will remain the same as we head into year number three. We’ll continue to bring the same commentary, news and recruiting updates and in turn, we hope you’ll continue to be the engaged audience that you’ve been the past 730 days.

We feel like it’s as great of a time as any in recent years to be a fan of Indiana basketball. Enthusiasm continues to grow despite a 6-25 season in Tom Crean’s first year. The program is headed in the right direction.

As for the makeover, we hope you’ll share your feedback with us. If something doesn’t look right or you notice any problems, drop us a line at info@insidethehall.com. Or if you absolutely love it, you can tell us about that, too. We’d like to give a shout-out to Collective Colony (which is actually just Ryan and a friend), who worked diligently to build our new look.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you who read, comment and spread the word about Inside the Hall. We hope you’ve enjoyed the first two years of Inside the Hall and will join us for year three.

- Commenting: In addition to being able to comment with Disqus, we have also added the ability to comment on the site with a Facebook account or a Twitter account. We recommend signing up with Disqus so that your comments are published immediately and do not have to be approved by a moderator. It also allows you to make a custom profile, including an avatar (picture), that will appear with your posts. Commenting is a big part of ITH, so we encourage everybody to join the discussion and community.

- Twitter: We’ve added an account for ITH on Twitter and plan to give some prizes away in the future to our followers. You can sign up for Twitter here and follow us here.

- Reader survey: It’s been a couple of months, but thanks to everyone who participated in the reader survey. We were able to gather data that will help us improve our content as well as pass on information to potential advertisers. If you own or work for a business you feel would have an interest in advertising, please send us an email at advertising@insidethehall.com and we can discuss.

- Donations: One new addition to the site you might have noticed is the donation button on the left sidebar. In the past we have we received emails from readers asking how they could support ITH. We had been reluctant to accept donations, but the feedback received during the reader survey was very favorable. We would like to reiterate that we fully intend to keep ITH free to read and that you should not feel any obligation to send a donation. Any donations received will go towards fees associated with keeping the site online. As we continue to grow the site and community, we expect the fees to maintain the site (mainly server costs), will continue to grow as well.

- E at the Dagger: ITH would like to formally congratulate Eamonn on his new position over at The Dagger on Yahoo! as editor. If you don’t read The Dagger regularly, it’s the primary blog for college basketball on Yahoo! Sports. He will continue to be a contributor at ITH.

Thanks for your continued readership and support. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line at info@insidethehall.com.