Law Student Leads Most Popular College Basketball Site to New Heights

New York, NY (PRWEB) December 12, 2005

Entering its fourth season of in-depth, round-the-clock coverage of college basketball, http://www.collegehoops.net assumes its role as the web’s largest independent NCAA hoops site. Starting as a mere vision in then-college student Shawn Siegel’s dorm room, CHN has grown into a daily destination for over ten thousand die-hard college basketball fans each day.

Siegel, CHN‘s do-everything President, is openly surprised at the site‘s success, “In all honesty, I had no clue how big CHN would become. The key to it all was being able to find talented writers that would stick with me through humble beginnings.” To this day, writers like Michiganite Joel Welser are still key to the site’s success. As the creative force behind CHN’s popular 144 Teams in 144 Days college basketball preview, Welser has amassed a massive portfolio of college basketball knowledge that few in the business could muster. “I’d be willing to match the quality and sheer extent of Joel’s work against any so-called college basketball expert in the country,” Siegel compliments, “Andy Katz, Seth Davis, Dickie V, whoever. Those guys know Duke and UNC. This guy knows everything.”

Going beyond the mere ACC-centric coverage of college basketball offered by ESPN is really the underlying concept that CHN was founded on. This is not to say that the top teams are ignored. Recent interviews with stars like Duke’s JJ Redick and Arizona’s Hassan Adams help give the site credibility and exposure to a wider fan-base. But ultimately Siegel knows the whole purpose of CHN is to provide the average college basketball fan with coverage of teams and players that the mainstream media outlets make no effort to cover.

The concept seems to be working. After averaging about 1,000 unique visitors during its first NCAA Tournament, the site grew to about 4,500 in year two, and finally to over 12,000 last March. This coming March, CHN is expecting over 20,000 unique visitors per day. “Right now, traffic on the site is exactly double what it was last December. Not only that, but the site is probably twice as good as it was this time last year. There’s no reason to think we‘ve come close to peaking.”

Perhaps the hardest thing for Siegel is not trying to cut into the readership of massive corporate sites like ESPN.com, Rivals.com, or CSTV.com, but merely finding the time to do so. On top of doing just about everything from designing logos and writing web-code, to interviewing top coaches and soliciting advertisers, Siegel also is a full-time law student. “I don’t have the guts to simply devote my future to running websites. At least not yet. Maybe if the traffic on CHN doubles once again I’ll give it more serious thought.” But for now, Siegel manages the site while trying to manage his work-load at one of the country’s top 25 law schools, Washington University School of Law in Saint Louis.

“I’m probably a better website publisher than I am student,” the self-effacing Siegel jokes. But CHN’s passionate fans don’t really care either way. So long as the site continues to provide unique insight into the game they love, it’s no matter whether Siegel attends the Final Four or spends his time studying for finals instead.

For more information, visit http://www.collegehoops.net/

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