Just because everything is happening all at once and these things are the variety of news that goes yes-no-yes-no-yes-no in the modern world, here's a random 10PM update on one of the Stories Of Our Time.

The Only Colors isn't using DEFCON to measure its Izzo departure panic level, but on a scale of 1-10 they're at 4.5 and KJ is still "well under 50%." He admits that's moving towards things he hopes instead of things he thinks, and I might be in the same boat: I think they're inching just over 50% but admit that is also a necessarily biased opinion.

I've got some reasons, though. TOC appears to be banking on the idea that Izzo will do a Billy Donovan-esque pullout, because the people on the team are predicting a departure. Delvon Roe's dad:

Blanton, who lives near Cleveland, has not spoken with Izzo. But he said he thinks Izzo will end up taking the Cavs job. "My opinion is, I think he's gonna leave," Blanton said. "When you keep it in the air this long. ... I don' t know if he's happy where he's at right now."

That's considerably less encouraging* than the original Rexrode blog post, which just mentioned Blanton's opinion that Izzo was out without giving the details. Blanton appears to be guessing.

On the other hand, this opinion may have come from his son and appears to be an opinion shared by multiple current Spartan players:

Sources have told The Plain Dealer that Michigan State players left a meeting with Tom Izzo Tuesday night believing he was going to leave to accept Gilbert's offer to become the next Cavaliers coach. Izzo didn't tell them that, he called the meeting to acknowledge reports that he'd been offered the job, but players left afraid they were about to lose their coach.

And as if on cue given the Ethics Throwdown this weekend, Cleveland blog Waiting For Next Year just plain says Izzo is headed to Cleveland:

Sources close to WFNY have informed us that Tom Izzo has told his players at Michigan State that he plans on taking the Cavaliers job.  Our sources have heard directly from players on the MSU team that Izzo informed them this week that he is planning on making the move up to the NBA level under the ownership of MSU grad Dan Gilbert.

This has caused much consternation on the twitters from local beatwriters, ESPN's Pat Forde, and various other national basketball reporting folk. And… yeah… they're not wrong. WFNY's report has been directly refuted by multiple sources, with direct quotes from Blanton. This is yet another example of someone jumping the gun.

On the other hand, this sarcasm from Forde…

Stunned that anonymous blog got this wrong. RT @LarryLage MSU asst Mark Montgomery told AP Izzo informed players Tues he has talked to Cavs

…is wildly provincial given the events of the past month—which have seen a parade of false reports about conference expansion—let alone the few months that have passed since the Chicago Sun-Times refused to let the Stoops-to-ND rumors die. Mainstream media folk pretending that blogs have cornered the market on erroneous reports are just as annoying as bloggers blithely stating that the proper amount of ethics is none.

Still: WFNY could have broken a major story if they'd just, you know, gotten it right. I don't necessarily blame them. As I discovered during Michigan's coaching search, and the Sun-Times will discover sometime in 2015 when it finally becomes clear to them that Bob Stoops is not Notre Dame's next coach, these situations are nightmares to report. Solid information is thin on the ground, minds can change in an instant, and certain parties are motivated to leak information to get what they want, whether it's true or false. Getting something wrong is going to happen.

But now that there are direct quotes contradicting their story they should give readers as much detail as they can about why they believe what they do and leave the decision in the reader's hand. They're "standing by" their original report after multiple people have called them liars. It's time to stop hiding behind "sources." That's a Sun-Times move. Here's this blog's primordial example from the coaching search, and the ur-example from the Morgan Trent Broken Hand New Media Fiasco. As it is, even if Izzo does take the job they were just wrong first.

[UPDATE: WFNY has done the full data dump suggested here. I still think they would have gotten a lot less attention straight away and looked better long term if they had gone for the soft sell, but it's a major step in the right direction.]

*(I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not pulling like a mofo for Izzo to leave. Blah blah blah, Michigan is its own program, etc: lies. The absolute best State can do is get a coach just as good, and the chances of that are small.)