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Opening Arguments

Where's the lede?

These mind-bending two paragraphs really stopped my when I was crusin' through the news online Saturday evening:

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WDRB) – When is an 83-55 basketball victory against Purdue that pushes Indiana into first place in the Big Ten not the first paragraph in a story about this rivalry game?

When Victor Oladipo, the Hoosiers' best defender and most dynamic player, leaves the game with an injury to his left ankle in the final minute of the first half  -- and sits the entire second half.

But of course, the writer does have the score in the first paragraph where it belongs and the supposed opening-stealing fact in the second paragraph instead of the first. Through the rhetorical sleight-of-hand of asking and answering his own question, he manages to seem to be doing something he really isn't. He's having his cake and eating it, too, in a way. This is either one of the cleverest story beginnings I've seen in a while or one of the silliest. I suppose the very fact that I can't quite decide is a vote for the former.

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