USBWA News from Pat Forde News

Congratulations, everyone. We've almost made it to March.

This is the best time of year to be a college basketball writer, which is something I try to remind myself – usually out loud – on the first day of conference tournaments and again on the first day of the NCAA Tournament.

There is a natural tension that exists between college basketball reporters and university sports information directors. Or at least there should be.

We wouldn't be doing our jobs correctly if we got along with the media gatekeepers 100 percent of the time. Our push for access will inevitably be met with resistance. Stories that we deem fair and objective will be considered unfair and subjective. Our belief in how to serve our readers will butt into an SID's belief in how to serve his head coach and athletic director.

College basketball is a wonderful sport with a lot of warts, and there are times when the blemishes overwhelm the beauty of the game.

We currently are in one of those troubled times. Jim Boeheim will sit out nine Atlantic Coast Conference games in 2015-16, partial penance for years of violations within his Syracuse program. Larry Brown was recently hit with his own nine-game suspension, and SMU is prohibited from playing in the postseason. Rick Pitino's Louisville program is being buffeted by tawdry allegations of a staffer paying for players and recruits to have sex with escorts in an on-campus dorm. Roy Williams still is laboring through an NCAA investigation at North Carolina, too.

I'm honored to be your new president of the USBWA. Hopefully my term does not end in Nixonian fashion, jumping on a helicopter in resignation to avoid impeachment. Mostly because I don't know where I'd find a helicopter.

I do have big shoes (or perhaps tall heels) to fill. Dana O'Neil was a dedicated, competent, energetic USBWA president who got things done – none greater than turning the annual Final Four awards breakfast into an awards luncheon. The spike in attendance validated the genius that went into giving sports writers more hours of sleep on the day of the national title game. Next year in Houston, we expect to see even more of you.

My agenda, if I have one, is uncomplicated: to serve the needs of our membership in whatever manner possible. If you have valid complaints, genuine concerns, bright ideas or thoughtful suggestions, I'm happy to hear them. Best email address for me is pfeaglebeak@aol.com. Fire away. I do see a couple of items to address: