For the love of God, can Kansas just cruise through the first round for once? Christ.
Everyone who watches the tournament yearly has experienced the frustration with CBS' coverage of the games, regional obligations, all of this. My best story concerns the 1995 tournament. I lived in Los Angeles at the time. That year, Villanova was a 3 seed and a very, very popular "sleeper" Final Four pick--they'd absolutely kicked ass down the stretch and looked extremely strong. Then, in the first round, the fourteenth seed, Old Dominion, took them to the wire.
Overtime.
Double Overtime.
Triple Overtime.
Then, in the middle of the third overtime, 90 seconds to go, ODU up by one, CBS CUTS AWAY for the tip off of the UCLA-Florida International game! The tip-off! And, you may recall, '95 was the year that UCLA won the title, so this wasn't just any game--this was the 1-16 game. UCLA ultimately won by 65 points. I have never been so outraged.
Anyway, I thought yesterday was going to be a tremendous basketball experience, as AFN had devoted three of its six channels to the tournament--and there were three different games. I was flipping back and forth between Gonzaga-Cincy, Marquette-Holy Cross, and Cal-NCState. Unless you have Direct TV, you know that this is an awesome situation. Then we attacked, and dropped to one channel for the remainder of the evening. OK. Disappointing, but it is war, after all.
What was most annoying is that AFN seems to refuse to switch games. I got saddled with the wretched Vermont/Arizona game, and with 8 minutes to go and Arizona up by 25, CBS took us to the Missouri/SIU game--surely the best game of the day. They had 3 minutes to go. After ten seconds, AFN suddenly CUT BACK to the blowout, independent of CBS! I almost threw up.
General comments about the day.
--Arizona, blowout notwithstanding, was NOT impressive yesterday. I thought they looked really lackluster. It's hard to pin it down, but I just felt like they had no passion at all. There's a blowout, and there's a blowout, and this was an easy game that they didn't appear to give a damn about. I could see a passionate Gonzaga doing the impossible.
--I can't believe that Weber lost. They must have all been stoned.
--Several people had talked up Memphis as a Kansas upsetter. Ha!
--If I see Dick Vitale talk one more damned time about how tough Hollis Price is and how he won't let OU lose because he wants to get back to his hometown of New Orleans, I'm going to poke him in his good eye.
--I really, really believe that CMU is going to upset Duke. I picked that upset in two of my three brackets, but wish I had in all three.
--Man, SIU got El Shafto. As King Kaufman put it on Salon.com today, that SIU guy had enough time to plant his feet and smoke a cigarette before Paulding plowed into him. But I picked Missouri, so eat it, Salukis.
--In general, good games, but surprisingly few upsets. By the numbers, only four out of sixteen lower seeds won, and I don't think anyone counts Gonz over the revolting Cincy. I love it when Cincinnati loses. Hate 'em.
--Watching games here is odd and cool, but the second wave of games doesn't start until 2 AM, so that's a killer.
1:22:10 PM 
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