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Talk:2011–12 Harvard Crimson men's basketball team/GA1

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Latest comment: 12 years ago by Batard0 in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Reviewer: Batard0 (talk · contribs) 14:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'll pick this one up. At first reading, it doesn't appear to need a ton of work. Initial observations to come.--Batard0 (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

On a more careful reading, it does need a lot of work. I may put it on hold for a while to see if we can resolve some of the outstanding issues.--Batard0 (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the careful review. I will attend to your concerns in the next few days.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:40, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good, thanks. I'll continue to add suggestions and so forth. --Batard0 (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
I hope this isn't too daunting, but I've finished up with the comments. It's pretty much all good outside of the language issues, and this shouldn't be too tough to fix.--Batard0 (talk) 16:34, 26 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'm going to put this one on hold, since it's taken a couple days and is likely to take some more time. I think we're getting closer, though. Well done.--Batard0 (talk) 11:20, 27 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Update: This is getting better. I think the best course is to plow through and make the changes you agree with, and then I'll make a separate section where we can talk about any outstanding issues. I think we'll easily find common ground on how to include all the necessary information without violating conciseness and focus GA criteria.--Batard0 (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Prose and basic MoS compliance

  • On the prose: The prose is mostly clear and somewhat concise. It needs some improvement.
Relevant GA criterion: "the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct."
  • On MoS compliance: MoS compliance in the lead is there. While I'd suggest removing stadium capacity on the ground that it's not directly relevant to the topic, it's a quibble and I certainly wouldn't fail the article on that basis. There are some other minor issues, but they're easily fixed. It passes MoS on layout, words to watch, fiction (not relevant) and list incorporation.
Relevant GA criterion: "it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation."

Specific suggestions for improvement (please let me know when these have been addressed and I'll cross them off as appropriate):

  • The second sentence is clunky and unnecessarily verbose. I would suggest removing the capacity of Lavietes Pavilion, which is tangential to the subject at hand, and rephrasing it as something like: "The team played its home games in Boston, Massachusetts at the Lavietes Pavilion, located across the Charles River from the university's main campus in Cambridge."
    • I have shortened in keeping with your instructions, but it is very common to include home stadium seating capacity in an article like this.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
      • If you'd like to keep it in, I won't protest. But I would suggest deleting stadium capacity from the leads of this and other articles about teams' seasons. The MoS on the lead says, in part, that "the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic ..." In my view, stadium capacity is too unimportant to the topic to place so high up in the lead section. What's the argument for the relevance of stadium capacity to a basketball team's 2011-12 season? I can't think of a good one. Nonetheless, I certainly don't think it's a big issue.--Batard0 (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • In the first sentence of the second paragraph, you can excise "which was". This makes it more concise and doesn't change the meaning.
  • In the same paragraph, we say, "On December 5, 2011, Harvard made its first ever appearance in either the AP (25) or Coaches Poll (24)." First a grammatical point: "first ever" should be "first-ever," since it's a compound adjective that modifies "appearance." Second, I think you should spell out these rankings instead of putting them in parentheses. I'd also suggest drawing a bit more context around them. Third, I'd suggest that the construction "either...or" is less clear than simply "and". The problem with "either...or" is that it can be construed by readers as exclusive or, which this obviously isn't. So I'd recommend something like the following: "On December 5, 2011, Harvard made its first-ever appearances in the AP poll and the Coaches' Poll, ranking 25th and 24th, respectively." Note: I believe "Coaches'" in Coaches' Poll takes a possessive apostrophe.
  • The following sentence, "The season included two wins against 2011–12 Atlantic Coast Conference teams", could use additional context. Why were these wins significant? Are the ACC teams powerhouse teams? Are they rival teams? Are they generally better than Harvard? Without this context, readers will have to tool around on Wikipedia to find out why this is significant.
  • The first sentence of the third paragraph is convoluted: "The season resulted in a school record setting overall win total of 26, as well as 12 conference wins which tied the prior year's record." I would suggest making it clearer by saying something like, "Harvard set a school record with 26 wins during the season. The team also tied a school record for conference wins with 12."
  • The following sentence is also confusingly phrased: "The season culminated in an inviation to the 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament as part of the first year in which the Ivy League had four postseason tournament participants." The first part is fine, but I'd suggest rephrasing the second part for clarity, i.e. something like, "The season culminated in an inviation to the 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. It was the first time four Ivy League schools made it to the postseason tournament." Alternatively, you could simply remove the second part. It's trivia.
  • The next sentence is: "Junior Kyle Casey was recognized as a first team All-Ivy selection, while junior Brandyn Curry and senior Keith Wright earned second team recognition." First, this is overly verbose. You can simply say, "Junior Kyle Casey was a first-team All-Ivy selection, while junior Brandyn Curry and senior Keith Wright earned second-team recognition." Note that "first-team" and "second-team" take hyphens because they're compound adjectives.
  • The next sentence is: "It was the schools first NCAA tournament appearance since 1946 and the team's third consecutive postseason appearance." First, it should be "school's", not "schools". Second, I'd suggest either elaborating briefly on the third consecutive postseason appearance or removing this. Can we say "third consecutive appearance in a postseason tournament."? There's also some unnecessary verbiage in the use of "the team's." The sentence could be: "It was Harvard's first NCAA tournament appearance since 1946 and third consecutive appearance in a postseason tournament."
  • The final sentence of the lead says: "The 14 regular season non-conference wins tied an Ivy League record previously held by the 2009–10 Cornell Big Red men's basketball team." I'd suggest getting rid of "regular season" to tighten it up, and also saying "Harvard's 14 non-conference wins". Starting with "The" makes it sound like you've already made reference to these wins, which isn't the case.
  • I suggest rearranging the sentences of the last paragraph of the lead for clarity's sake. As it stands, it jumps from the team's wins to its NCAA tournament participation to its player recognitions, then back to the NCAA tournament and finally back to the team's wins. This is not a logical way to tell the story. Why not put it in rough chronological order? I'd recommend grouping all the information about wins first, then talking about the NCAA tournament and ending with the players' honors, because I think that's the order in which these things happened. So something like: ""Harvard set a school record with 26 wins during the season and tied a school record for conference wins with 12. Its 14 non-conference wins also tied an Ivy League record previously held by the 2009–10 Cornell Big Red men's basketball team. The season culminated in an inviation to the 2012 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, where Harvard lost in the second round is this correct??. It was Harvard's first NCAA tournament appearance since 1946 and third consecutive appearance in a postseason tournament. Junior Kyle Casey was a first-team All-Ivy selection, while junior Brandyn Curry and senior Keith Wright earned second-team recognition."
  • Now moving on to the Preseason section. There's a grammatical error in the first sentence. "The Amaker-led team is coming off of sequential school record setting seasons in terms of total victories (21 and 23) and its first Ivy League Championship." It should probably be "Harvard came into the 2011-12 season off of two school record-setting years in terms of total wins and its first Ivy League Championship." There's no need to list the number of wins here; they're not entirely relevant to the topic at hand.
  • I don't understand why the following sentence is relevant: "The 2010–11 team that won the school's first league championship during the 2010–11 Ivy League men's basketball season was seniorless." I'm not sure how to fix this other than suggesting its deletion.
  • The next sentence is: "The 2011–12 team returned Ivy League Men's Basketball Player of the Year Keith Wright (Sr.), as well as second team All-Ivy League Kyle Casey (Jr.), second team All-Ivy League Brandyn Curry (Jr.) and honorable mention All-Ivy League Christian Webster (Jr.)." This sentence is confusing. I think I know what it means, but a team can't return a person, as far as I'm aware. Why not rephrase it as: "Ivy League Men's Basketball Player of the Year Keith Wright returned to the team as a senior, as did juniors Kyle Casey, Brandyn Curry and Christian Webster." I'd suggest the previous year's minor honors for players other than Wright aren't very notable and should be removed.
  • The next sentence says: "Harvard entered the 2011–12 NCAA Division I men's basketball season with a 17-game home streak (10th longest in the country)." Readers know by this point what season this is, so there's no need to repeat it. I'd recommend something like: "Harvard entered the season with a 17-game home winning streak, the 10th-longest in the country."
  • In the next sentence, I'd consider deleting the subclause about McNally finishing second in free throw percentage the previous year. The shift back and forth in timeframe from the previous season to the one at hand causes confusion. I recommend either deletion or clarification, although I'm unsure exactly how you'd do it. Perhaps: "Senior co-captain Oliver McNally entered the season with a 32-shot free-throw streak, having finished second in the nation in free-throw percentage the previous year."
  • The next sentence says: "The upperclassmen on the team are the results of a recruiting class that at one point was the first top 25 recruiting class in Ivy League history." First, we're talking about a season that happened in the past; why do we have the present tense here? Second, people aren't a result of a recruiting class. I think it's better to say the upperclassmen "came from the first top-25 recruiting class in Ivy League history." "At one point" is unnecessary. Either it was the first such class or it wasn't. It can't have been so at one point and then suddenly wasn't the first any more.
  • In the next sentence, it's not crystal clear who "its leader" is. I assume this is Wright, and I'd suggest saying so. Also, "preseason selectors" is vague. Is it preseason honors? Preseason commentators? Who? Perhaps you mean: "Harvard and Wright won numerous preseason honors."
  • I'm going to leave this here now and see if we can get some of these issues resolved. If so, I'll move forward with the review.
  • The sentence at the end of the paragraph is: "In addition, Harvard received preseason votes in the AP Poll marking the fourth straight season it received votes in that poll at some point in the season." I'd recommend deleting "in that poll" for conciseness. I'd also recommend putting a comma after "AP Poll" for clarity.
  • In the following sentence, "second round" is a compound adjective describing the Battle 4 Atlantis. It should be hyphenated: "second-round."
  • The next sentence is: "With high expectations for Harvard, the December 8 contest against Connecticut is the only Ivy League game scheduled to be broadcast on ESPN2 during the season." First, there's a tense problem. "Is" should be "was". Second, the sentence is confusing. If there were high expectations for Harvard, why was only one game broadcast on ESPN2? I would suggest that deleting the first clause would clarify it. So: "A December 8 contest against Connecticut was the only Ivy League game scheduled for broadcast on ESPN2 during the season." Or I think you could say something like, "Expectations were high for Harvard, and a December 8 contest against Connecticut was the only Ivy League game scheduled for broadcast on ESPN2 during the season."
  • In the Rankings section, we have: "On December 5, 2011, Harvard made its first ever appearance in either the AP (25) or Coaches Poll (24)." The same issues as above apply here. "First-ever" takes a hyphen because it's a compound adjective. I'd suggest spelling out the rankings, and remember that Coaches' takes an apostrophe.
  • The following sentence is: "It leaves Brown as the only remaining Ivy League school to have never been ranked in the AP Poll and leaves only seven schools that have played Division I basketball since the AP Poll began that have never been ranked in it." First, there's a tense issue. This happened in the past. So the sentence should start "That left" instead of "It leaves". Second, "remaining" can be removed. Third, I'd suggest removing the part about seven schools in Div I basketball never being ranked, because this is fairly tangential information. So something like: "That left Brown as the only Ivy League school never to have been ranked in the AP Poll." This is more concise.
    • I disagree with the suggested content removal. How about "Previously, only eight schools (two in the Ivy League) that have played Division I basketball since the AP Poll began had never been ranked. Brown is the lone remaining Ivy on the list."?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
      • That's fine, but it can be more concise -- how about: "Previously, only eight Division I schools (two in the Ivy League) had never been ranked. Brown is the lone remaining Ivy on the list."? Or does that make it factually incorrect? The phrasing "Division I basketball since the AP Poll began" is unclear. Are we talking about schools that have continuously played Division I ball since the AP Poll began, or are we saying that since the AP Poll began, only eight D-I schools haven't been ranked. My concern here is focus as much as language; it seems we're veering into trivia about other schools.--Batard0 (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
        • I am troubled by your need to distinguish between sports history and trivia. I think it is all related. What we are trying to say is that of all the schools that have been eligible to be ranked for the entire time period since the poll began only 8 schools had never been ranked.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:48, 1 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • The next sentence is: "Harvard is the first Ivy League team ranked in the Coaches Poll since the 2009–10 Cornell Big Red and the first Ivy League team ranked in the AP Poll since the 1997–98 Princeton Tigers, who finished 8th in the poll." Again, there's a tense issue. This happened in the past. "Harvard was" not "is". As before, "Coaches'" takes an apostrophe. Also, I'd suggest deleting "who finished 8th in the poll" on focus grounds or else simply saying "who finished 8th". Readers know by now that we're talking about the poll, so there's no need to repeat it.
  • The next sentence is: "By January 2, the team achieved rankings of 22 in the AP Poll and 21 in the Coaches Poll." Should these be 22nd and 21st? I'm not sure. It's your call. Also the issue with the apostrophe on Coaches' Poll persists here.
  • The final sentence should perhaps be removed. The team's ranking in the Coaches' Poll didn't change; why is it necessary to include it? If you do want to include it, I would suggest emphasizing that the ranking didn't change. So: "The team again ranked 21st in the Coaches' Poll On February 6." Also, the same apostrophe issue persists here. And if we're using 21st here, we should say 22nd and 21st elsewhere.
  • The first sentences in the Season section could be made more concise. They concern a ceremony that isn't an important part of the team's actual season. I'd recommend something like, "Harvard's season began with a Crimson Madness event on October 15 where the team raised a 2010–11 Ivy League Championship banner and held an intrasquad scrimmage."
  • The next two sentences could be consolidated, too. I'm thinking something like: "The team opened the season with a victory over MIT on November 11 that extended Harvard's win streak against MIT to nine games."
  • The second paragraph of the Season section is arranged in a confusing fashion, with jarring shifts between 2011-12 games that took place on different days and even in one case in a different season. I suggest rewriting the paragraph and following a strict chronology. You might start by saying, "Following the victory over MIT, Harvard took part in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament." Then talk about the first game in that tournament. "The team beat Utah in the first game of the tournament, its first-ever win against a Pacific-12 Conference opponent." Then say the team advanced to a game against Florida State. "On November 25, Harvard faced Florida State, which was then ranked 22nd in the AP poll and 20th in the Coaches' Poll. Harvard won that game (score?) for the second-ever defeat of a ranked opponent in team history." Then talk about winning the tournament against UCF. "Harvard then matched up against UCF in the tournament final, winning (score?)." And then talk about accomplishments. "Wright earned Ivy League player of the week for his performance in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. McNally extended his free-throw streak to 51 in the Florida State victory, but his run ended in the final minutes of the UCF game." I'd suggest getting rid of the information about the 2008-2009 team, because that's tangential stuff and this article is about the 2011-12 season.
  • By the time we get to the third paragraph, we know Harvard has won four games to open the season. But in fact we've skipped over wins against Holy Cross and Loyola Marymount earlier in the season. Therefore I'd suggest going back to the previous paragraph (discussed directly above) and starting it with "Following victories over Holy Cross and Loyola, Harvard took part in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament." I'd then suggest starting the third paragraph of the Season section with: "Two more wins against Vermont and Seattle gave Harvard an 8-0 record, the best start by an Ivy League team since Columbia won its first ten games to begin the 1969-1970 season." (Pipe the link, please, for brevity.)
  • I'd then stick to a strict chronology, which means describing the temporal context of the following sentence more clearly. I'd also take the rankings out of parentheses, as suggested above. There's also no need to repeat Harvard's record, which was described in the previous sentence. And Connecticut's ranking is the same in both polls, so no need to put separate ranking for both. So maybe: "Harvard, then ranked 25th in the AP poll and 24th in the Coaches' poll, next faced its most formidable challenge yet: Connecticut, which then had a 7–1 record and was ranked 9th in both polls. Harvard had a better record against common foes, but Connecticut won the teams' previous meeting in 2009 by a score of 79–73. Connecticut won the game 67–53, handing Harvard its first loss of the season."
  • The fourth paragraph also needs work. In the first sentence, I think it's clearer to start with the wins and then put them into context instead of vice versa. I.e. "Harvard won its next four games, including victories over Boston University and Boston college for a season sweep of city rivals after beating MIT in November."
  • I'd delete all of the following for conciseness. I don't think it adds much, and there's a citation needed tag in there: "Harvard was the first ranked team Boston University had hosted since 2003. (this is unnecessary because it focuses on Boston, and the article's about Harvard) Harvard's victory over Boston College was its fourth consecutive against its Atlantic Coast Conference opponent, giving the team five consecutive wins against the conference, including its only two wins against ranked opponents. (how can this be both the fourth consecutive win in the ACC and fifth consecutive win in the conference?)"
  • The next sentence should be restructured for clarity. It has too many numbers stacked up against each other. So instead of, "The January 27 65–35 victory over Yale is the widest margin of victory for Harvard in the 183 meetings between the two teams," can we say "A 65-35 win over Yale on January 27 was Harvard's widest margin of victory against its Ivy-League rival in 183 meetings between the teams."
  • The team had four losses in the season, but the Fordham loss is not described. Why not?
  • I don't understand the following sentence: "On February 24, Harvard defeated Princeton to avenge its only conference loss of the season to that point." Before you describe the vengeance, you need to describe the initial loss on February 11. So perhaps: "Harvard lost its third game of the season to Princeton on February 11, but avenged the defeat in a home game two weeks later."
  • The next sentence says: "The team established a new record for single-season wins as well as single-season non-league wins and tied the record for conference game wins." It's not clear when Harvard set this record. Are we suddenly talking about the end of the season?
  • The next sentence says: "On February 25, Penn snapped Harvard's 28-game home win streak that began on February 20, 2010." This could be clearer. Why not: "A day after beating Princeton, however, Harvard lost to Penn, snapping a 28-game home win streak dating to 2010."
  • The next sentence is: "Nonetheless, Harvard went on to win the 2011–12 Ivy League men's basketball regular season title, earning its first invitation to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament since 1946." I think you need to state Harvard's regular-season record before you talk about the Ivy League title and tournament invitation. So: "Nonetheless, Harvard finished the season with a 26–4 overall record. The team won the Ivy League regular-season title (pipe the link for concision, please) and earned its first invitation to the NCAA tournament (pipe the link, it was spelled out and linked in the lead) since 1946."
  • The next sentence is: "Harvard entered the tournament with a 2–1 record against teams in the field (In addition to its results against Florida State and Connecticut, the team had defeated Vermont)." I think the parenthetical information can safely be removed. It makes the sentence convoluted and only adds confusion. I would recommend then adjoining this sentence with the following one into something like this: "Harvard entered the tournament with a 2–1 record against teams in the field and was seeded 12th (in what bracket/conference/division?)"
  • I'd then suggest having a standalone sentence about its tournament loss: "Harvard lost (in the first round? second?) to fifth-seeded Vanderbilt on March 15 by a score of 79–70."
  • The first sentence of the fifth paragraph can be made more concise. It's not necessary to include a breakdown of the home games Harvard sold out. Here you could include the arena's capacity, because it's actually relevant, as opposed to in the lead section, where it doesn't belong. And I think the wording can be more straightforward, as follows: "Harvard sold out 10 of its 12 home games at the 2,195-seat Lavietes Pavilion, a team record."
  • The next sentence could use some editing or else should be removed: "Although the team returned all five of its starters and 12 players from its championship team, freshmen accounted for over 22% of the team's minutes played." I'd suggest rephrasing it to make it clear that this (the return of five starters) happened in the past. So: "All five of Harvard's starters and 12 total players (is this right?) had returned from the previous year's championship team, but freshmen accounted for over 22% of minutes played in the 2011-12 season."
  • The next sentence is verbose: "By sweeping its four games against in-state opponents, Harvard extended its winning streak to 14 games against Commonwealth of Massachusetts opponents (since December 10, 2008 against Northeastern)." This can be, more simply: "Harvard swept its four games against Massachusetts rivals, extending an in-state winning streak to 14 games." The parenthetical information about Northeastern isn't essential; best to cut for conciseness.
  • The next sentence is: "The program also defeated teams from a record-setting 11 different conferences, plus an independent." Starting with "Harvard" instead of "the program" is slightly better because "Harvard" is shorter. That's just a quibble. The word "different" can be removed without changing the meaning; the 11 conferences couldn't somehow be the same ones.
  • The next sentence is confusing: "Other school records set during the season include best Ivy league start (7–0, previously 5–0 in 1980–81) and most road wins (12)." First, we're in the past tense here; it should be "included," not "include". Second, does Ivy League take initial caps? That's the way it is in the rest of the article, and so it should be here. In any case, it should be consistent. Third, I'd get rid of the records in parens because they're confusing. Did Harvard not go 8-0? I'd simply say: "Other school records set during the season included best Ivy League start and most road wins, with 12.
  • The final sentence of the Season section has some issues too: "14 regular season non-conference wins tied an Ivy League record although the 2009-10 Cornell team went on to add 2 post season wins to reach 16 non-conference wins and Penn twice reached 14 non-conference wins including the postseason." First, you shouldn't start a sentence with a numeral. Hence it's best to rephrase it. Second, the information about Cornell and Penn is tangential to an article about Harvard's season and I'd suggest taking it out for conciseness. So maybe: "Harvard's 14 non-conference wins in the regular season tied an Ivy-League record."
  • Moving to the Honors section, I'd suggest converting the first sentence to the past tense, given that we're talking about a season in the past, i.e. "the Ivy League selected".
  • Under Postseason honors, we have "Both Kyle Casey and Keith Wright were selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association to its 10-man 2011–12 Men's All-District I (ME, VT, NH, RI, MA, CT) Team, while Tommy Amaker was named the team's Coach of the Year." The word "Both" here isn't necessary and can be removed for conciseness. I'd also delete "2011-12 Men's" if possible, since we know we're talking about the 2011-12 men's team. And I'd delete the information in parentheses, as this just trips up the reader and doesn't add much meaning. Can District I somehow be piped into a link? I can't find a wikilink for it myself, however. And the phrasing about Amaker being named the "team's Coach of the Year" is confusing. Are we saying Amaker was the All-District I team's coach of the year? Or is it the All-District I coach of the year? It seems odd for a team to name a coach of the year.
  • The following sentence is: "The National Association of Basketball Coaches announced their Division I All‐District District 13 team on March 14, recognizing the nation’s best men’s collegiate basketball student-athletes." I'm confused by the "All-District District 13" phrase. Could this be "All-District 13"? Or does that make it incorrect? Also, while this is a quibble and it's not critical, I'd suggest saying "announced its" instead of "their" since in the U.S. organizations are typically treated as singular entities, with the exception of pluralized team names.
  • Another quibble in the next sentence: I think it reads a little better if you say either "Keith Wright was a first-team selection, while Kyle Casey was a second-team selection" or "Keith Wright was a first-team selection, and Kyle Casey made the second team." Note that first-team and second-team take hyphens when used as compound adjectives.
  • In the final sentence, I'd say "NCAA tournament final four" instead of spelling out the whole thing, since you already spelled it out earlier in the article.
  • The "In season" subheading under Honors I think should be "In-season", since we're talking about in-season honors (a compound adjective modifying honors). This is a quibble.
  • Finally, I don't think it's necessary to list the first- and second-team All-Ivy players' schools as Harvard, given that this is an article about a Harvard team. Readers will infer that these are Harvard players.
  • Returning to the lead for a moment, do we need the first and second citations? These support statements that are unlikely to be challenged, in my view. From the MoS on leads: "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be supported by an inline citation. Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material."
    • Either the lead should be fully-cited or fully-uncited. You can't cite some paragraphs and leave others uncited. I did make sure that this content appears in the main body however, since the lead is only suppose to be summarizing the main body content.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:57, 1 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Factual accuracy and verifiability

  • On references: The refs conform with GA criteria (there are some problems with wikilinks, but that's not a GA issue)
Relevant GA criterion: "it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout."
  • On citations: It's one citation away from fine. There's a citation needed tag on a sentence in the fourth graph of the Season section. Fix this either by deleting the sentence, as recommended above, or finding the right ref.
Relevant GA criterion: "it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons."
  • On original research: There's no OR here.
Relevant GA criterion: "it contains no original research."

Specific suggestions for improvement (please let me know when these have been addressed and I'll cross them off as appropriate):

Broad in its coverage

  • On addressing the main aspects of the topic: It covers the main aspects of the team's 2011-12 season. No problems here.
Relevant GA criterion: "it addresses the main aspects of the topic."
  • On focus: There are some areas where it goes into unnecessary detail, including descriptions of past seasons, other teams' record-setting streaks, etc. Suggestions are above in the prose and MoS section.
Relevant GA criterion: "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail."

Specific suggestions for improvement (please let me know when these have been addressed and I'll cross them off as appropriate):

See above.

Neutrality and stability

  • On neutrality: Not an issue at all.
Relevant GA criterion: "it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each."
  • On stability: No edit wars.
Relevant GA criterion: "it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute."

Specific suggestions for improvement (please let me know when these have been addressed and I'll cross them off as appropriate):

None.

Images

  • On copyright and fair use: Looks fine. The only image is a logo in commons.
Relevant GA criterion: "images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content."
  • On relevance: They are relevant.
Relevant GA criterion: "images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions."

Specific suggestions for improvement (please let me know when these have been addressed and I'll cross them off as appropriate):

None.

Current status (Note that I will amend the below table as issues are addressed; this is just a barometer of where the article stands now. If it fails, that simply means I would fail the article if I were forced to make a decision based on its current condition.)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

  1. Is it reasonably well written?
    A. Prose quality:  
    B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:  
  2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
    A. References to sources:  
    B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:  
    C. No original research:  
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. Major aspects:  
    B. Focused:  
  4. Is it neutral?
    Fair representation without bias:  
  5. Is it stable?
    No edit wars, etc:  
  6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
    A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:  
    B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:  
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:  

Outstanding issues

edit

The above is getting too long, so I'm creating a new section with the things that we haven't resolved. This is just a copy-and-paste job.

  • The following sentence is: "It leaves Brown as the only remaining Ivy League school to have never been ranked in the AP Poll and leaves only seven schools that have played Division I basketball since the AP Poll began that have never been ranked in it." First, there's a tense issue. This happened in the past. So the sentence should start "That left" instead of "It leaves". Second, "remaining" can be removed. Third, I'd suggest removing the part about seven schools in Div I basketball never being ranked, because this is fairly tangential information. So something like: "That left Brown as the only Ivy League school never to have been ranked in the AP Poll." This is more concise.
    • I disagree with the suggested content removal. How about "Previously, only eight schools (two in the Ivy League) that have played Division I basketball since the AP Poll began had never been ranked. Brown is the lone remaining Ivy on the list."?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:59, 26 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
      • That's fine, but it can be more concise -- how about: "Previously, only eight Division I schools (two in the Ivy League) had never been ranked. Brown is the lone remaining Ivy on the list."? Or does that make it factually incorrect? The phrasing "Division I basketball since the AP Poll began" is unclear. Are we talking about schools that have continuously played Division I ball since the AP Poll began, or are we saying that since the AP Poll began, only eight D-I schools haven't been ranked. My concern here is focus as much as language; it seems we're veering into trivia about other schools.--Batard0 (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
        • I am troubled by your need to distinguish between sports history and trivia. I think it is all related. What we are trying to say is that of all the schools that have been eligible to be ranked for the entire time period since the poll began only 8 schools had never been ranked.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:48, 1 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
          • I think we can find a way to work everything in while making it more concise. I made an attempt to do this in the article. Revert and discuss if you disagree.--Batard0 (talk) 17:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • I'd then stick to a strict chronology, which means describing the temporal context of the following sentence more clearly. I'd also take the rankings out of parentheses, as suggested above. There's also no need to repeat Harvard's record, which was described in the previous sentence. And Connecticut's ranking is the same in both polls, so no need to put separate ranking for both. So maybe: "Harvard, then ranked 25th in the AP poll and 24th in the Coaches' poll, next faced its most formidable challenge yet: Connecticut, which then had a 7–1 record and was ranked 9th in both polls. Harvard had a better record against common foes, but Connecticut won the teams' previous meeting in 2009 by a score of 79–73. Connecticut won the game 67–53, handing Harvard its first loss of the season."
  • I'd delete all of the following for conciseness. I don't think it adds much, and there's a citation needed tag in there: "Harvard was the first ranked team Boston University had hosted since 2003. (this is unnecessary because it focuses on Boston, and the article's about Harvard) Harvard's victory over Boston College was its fourth consecutive against its Atlantic Coast Conference opponent, giving the team five consecutive wins against the conference, including its only two wins against ranked opponents. (how can this be both the fourth consecutive win in the ACC and fifth consecutive win in the conference?)"
    • Re-read it is the fourth against BC and the fifth against the conference. You are asking for removal of some of the flavor of the season. I understand the removal of the BU thing, but the ACC detail is about Harvard.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:21, 28 June 2012 (UTC)Reply
      • I made some slight changes for clarity and kept it in. This work for you? I'd only note that we do need a citation for the sentence: "Harvard's victory over Boston College was its fourth in a row against the Atlantic Coast Conference team,[44] giving it five consecutive wins overall against ACC teams, including its only two wins against ranked opponents."--Batard0 (talk) 04:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
  • The first sentence of the fifth paragraph can be made more concise. It's not necessary to include a breakdown of the home games Harvard sold out. Here you could include the arena's capacity, because it's actually relevant, as opposed to in the lead section, where it doesn't belong. And I think the wording can be more straightforward, as follows: "Harvard sold out 10 of its 12 home games at the 2,195-seat Lavietes Pavilion, a team record."
  • Under Postseason honors, we have "Both Kyle Casey and Keith Wright were selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association to its 10-man 2011–12 Men's All-District I (ME, VT, NH, RI, MA, CT) Team, while Tommy Amaker was named the team's Coach of the Year." The word "Both" here isn't necessary and can be removed for conciseness. I'd also delete "2011-12 Men's" if possible, since we know we're talking about the 2011-12 men's team. And I'd delete the information in parentheses, as this just trips up the reader and doesn't add much meaning. Can District I somehow be piped into a link? I can't find a wikilink for it myself, however. And the phrasing about Amaker being named the "team's Coach of the Year" is confusing. Are we saying Amaker was the All-District I team's coach of the year? Or is it the All-District I coach of the year? It seems odd for a team to name a coach of the year.
  • Returning to the lead for a moment, do we need the first and second citations? These support statements that are unlikely to be challenged, in my view. From the MoS on leads: "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and quotations, should be supported by an inline citation. Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material."
    • Either the lead should be fully-cited or fully-uncited. You can't cite some paragraphs and leave others uncited. I did make sure that this content appears in the main body however, since the lead is only suppose to be summarizing the main body content.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:57, 1 July 2012 (UTC)Reply
      • This is not an issue, really. The MoS is pretty vague on what's required, so I'm not going to belabor the point.

It seems that the outstanding issues are all awaiting responses from you.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:15, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

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