A thank you to all our readers

Photo by A. Martina Ibanez-Baldor

We would like to welcome you to the new Paint Touches website. This is an exciting time for the two of us and we are ecstatic to share it with our loyal readers.

When we began PaintTouches.com in the summer of 2011 our goals and expectations were steep. We committed to covering Marquette objectively and unbiased in the truest and most complete way possible. Our goal was not to cover the Golden Eagles as a hobby—though it is both of our passion—or simply to have the website to share our thoughts and to promote our coverage in the Marquette Tribune. Our goal was to become the most complete, in-depth and accurate place for college basketball fans to learn about and enjoy Marquette basketball.

Whether we have accomplished this yet is not ours to say. The only website we compete against is our own, making sure PaintTouches.com is always improving and taking steps forward. Today that step involves our new website, and our hope is that this only will enhance our coverage every day for the fans and media who visit PaintTouches.com.

We both were fortunate enough to find jobs in sports journalism after graduating one year ago, and we do dedicate our time to those professions as complete as we can. But PaintTouches.com holds a special place in our hearts and we want to see the future through, whatever that may hold.

We have put endless hours and numerous late-nights into ensuring the quality of our website, but NONE of our successes would have been possible without our readers and supporters. After all, if no one reads what we produce, then what exactly are we doing here? There are literally hundreds of people we must thank for what the last 23 months have brought, and it would take far too long to list them all here. But what we want everyone to know is this: if you have ever read our website, retweeted or tweeted at us—even the critical ones; we read them all—helped us with an interview, written for us or thanked us in person, none of that has gone unnoticed. Literally. We remember and are humbled by it all.

Our hope with the new website—and we want as much feedback from as many possible readers—is that our articles will be more easily accessible and look cleaner. As much as we loved the blog format and recognizable yellow background, we are sure this template will benefit everyone.

We cannot thank each and every one of you enough. Our promise from Day 1 has been to be as diligent and thorough in our work today as we were two years ago when we celebrated 75 page views or our 300^th Twitter follower.

Marquette basketball is special, that we knew the day we stepped on campus as freshmen in 2008. But what we’ve found on this journey is how much the program means to so many people. That has pushed us to continue our work, and for that we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Sincerely,

Andrei Greska and Mark Strotman