THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 20, 1996 TAG: 9603200650
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
It was like watching a hybrid of the home shopping channel and the Short Attention Span Theater.
I'm speaking of CBS' just-completed coverage of the long weekend of first- and second-round play in the NCAA basketball tournament.
A wild ride, eh?
Trying to please everyone, CBS bounced all over the country, catching bits and pieces of this game and that. Leave the room, and when you return, you've gone from Dallas to Providence, from Milwaukee to Tempe.
This is basketball presented as electronic window shopping. Here, CBS tells viewers, are the products for sale at this time: North Carolina vs. New Orleans; Iowa vs. George Washington; Texas vs. Michigan.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.
Only so much time to gaze at the goods. Before long, they are snatched away and replaced by the final 3:22 of a contest between two teams that may interest you, but probably do not.
Before the entire 3:22 is up, there's another switch - to the last 17 seconds of a free-throw shooting contest between a couple of teams out West.
This is sports as QVC would handle it. It's surprising that CBS hasn't replaced studio host Pat O'Brien with Joan Rivers.
A couple Tar Heel friends were miffed when CBS grew bored with the second half of North Carolina's rout of New Orleans. The Letterman Network switched to another game, simply because the Tar Heels were winning so easily.
But when, on Sunday, the Tar Heels were getting ripped by Texas Tech, once again CBS moved on, thus denying U.Va. fans and other North Carolina detractors in these parts the pleasure of watching somebody humble the Heels.
Perhaps there is no way CBS can keep everybody happy. Except for the sponsors. As for those 2 1/2-minute advertising breaks, if they were any longer, they'd be infomercials.
Anyway, the regionals are approaching. It's time for TV to put away the hors d'oeuvres and start serving meals.
The regionals usually whip up the most appetizing games. And for all the talk of upsets, most of the marquee teams are still around.
Only one top seed - absurdly overrated Purdue - has dropped out. Meanwhile, every No. 2 seed survived, three No. 3s are still in the hunt, and a pair of No. 4s have moved on.
From here, the only real shocker will be if Kentucky fails to come out of Minneapolis.
But in the East, UMass coach John Calipari is more right than paranoid when he says that ``the consensus'' has his Minutemen falling in Atlanta.
If UMass gets by 12th-seeded Arkansas, a larger, deeper Georgetown probably awaits. UMass has been beating deeper teams all season, but the Hoya combination of Allen Iverson on the outside (and everywhere else) and the Beef Brothers inside could put too much of a strain on a thin team with a skinny center (Marcus Camby).
Out West, where the field has been filled with cottage cheese, the Final Four representative should emerge from the Kansas-Arizona semifinal. A week ago, Kansas would have been my pick. Now, it's Arizona. Just a hunch.
The most entertaining game, though, could be Friday night in Lexington, Ky., between Georgia Tech and Cincinnati. In some circles, this is being called Stephon Marbury's college swan song.
We will see. That is, we'll see as much as CBS lets us. by CNB