PR Move of the Day: Ivy League hoops has been long dominated by the Penn, Princeton tandem, and given the lack of a post-season tournament, the long march for another school to break through has to be done by sustained effort both on the recruiting trail and on the court. It looks like this year's breakthrough team could be Cornell University, and the Big Red took some great strides to introduce their squad to the nation (and especially to a New York area that is going through a drought of quality collegiate hoops this year) with a 48 hour all access piece granted to the New York Times. The result was insight into the life of Ivy League student-athletes through a grueling two day back to back road game stretch that most fans dont event realize and rarely see. The Times, through Pete Thamel's words along with stills and video, gave us a great opportunity through all mediums to meet and understand Coach Steve Donahue and his team. This was a great move by the Cornell athletic staff to grant the Times all access even in this, the most critical stretch of the Ivy League season, where one slip up could mean no postseason for the school. The result was a win win (yes they won both games, including a dramatic win @ Harvard Friday night) for all involved, and it also gave the media and the fans a nice sneak preview to a potential Cinderella team for March Madness.
Also on the hoops front, the NBA again scored on many of its messages with All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. From Dwight Howard's Superman Dunk (good profile by Sekou Smith in the Atlanta Journal Constitution) to the huge humanitarian effort with almost every NBA-related person in New Orleans undertaking a charitable acitivity (John Hollinger's ESPN.com blog set it up nicelyIan Thomsen's piece in si.com also delivered), to the almost lack of non-hoops drama (nice piece by Jason Whitlock in the KC Star on the “dull” NBA All-Star weekend) to a host of human interest pieces (best one perhaps by Arash Markazi at si.com, introducing people to Hornets All-Star David West with another solid one by Michael Lee in the Washington Post on West's teammate Chris Paul), to some great business activation stories (nice USA Today business piece on LeBron James signing on with State Farm Insurance), the weekend was as problem free as any in recent memory, and was another strong effort by the marketing and PR teams at the NBA to continue to beat the drum with some great examples on how to merchandise such a mega event over a series of days.
