The View from the chair

This is Championship week in College Basketball. Most of the conferences or leagues in the country have a tournament to decide what team for said conference (Big East, ACC, Big 12, PAC-10, and the likes) gets its automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. In fact there are 31 conferences, which have a tournament to decide their automatic bid. Only the Ivy League has the regular season champions who get that leagues automatic bid. The other 34 teams that make up the 65 team NCAA Tournament are chosen from a committee of basketball people in Indianapolis. This week’s debate is, do their tournaments over shadow the regular season. Make no mistake; these conference tournaments are not going a way any time soon. They make too much money for their leagues. In the large conferences like the Big East or the ACC that get multiple teams into the NCAA tournament, the regular season is important, but if a team losses early in its conference tournament and had a great regular season, that team will get an at-large bid to the big dance. This year is a good example; Syracuse won the Big East regular season title with a 15-3 conference record, but lost last Thursday in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. For that 15-3 record they are in the NCAA tournament. Some of the smaller leagues like the Northeast or the American East conference only the winner of their tournament will get a bid to the NCAA’s. My example here is in the Northeast Conference championship game Quinnipiac lost to Robert Morris for the only spot in the big dance. I think the only way this will change is if the UCONN’s of the world play the Quinnipiac’s of the world on a regular bases.

In woman’s college basketball, UCONN has won 72 games in a row, to break consecutive game records of 70 back in 2001 to 2003. The debate over this record is if the streak is good for woman’s basketball. I’M on the fence if the steak is good for woman’s basketball. I have to agree with ESPN’s Doris Burke for reminding use that no one questioned John Wooden when his UCLA Bruins Men’s team won 88 in a row back in the 70’s. Doris also is right when she points out that there opponents have not gotten any better than the 2001 to 2003 steak. ESPN.com had a great statistical breakdown of all 3 teams. During their current streak, the Huskies have beaten their opponents by more then 32 points. Compare that with 25 points the UCLA men beat their opponents from 1971 to 74. The other stat that blew me away is that the UCLA Men had 16 single-digit wins in the longest win streak in history, compared to not one single-digit win for the women. Just remarkable!

There is an interesting story on ESPN.com about how six of the 16 first and second round sites for the NCAA women’s tournament will lose money. This is because the women’s tournament is played on campus and if that team or a team from that team’s league or conference does not play there the crowd doesn’t come. Think about this Gampel Pavilion hosted games and UCONN or at least the Big East Team was not playing would you go to the games. UCONN and Tennessee are the only programs that travel well or will go were the team plays. What does this say about women’s basketball? I don’t know but I believe that the woman should play at the same sites as the men. Lets take this year for example; Providence, Rhode Island hosted the Men’s first two rounds Thursday & Saturday. The women could play Friday & Sunday. I think the problem is, not the same teams are involved in both tournaments but this scenario would make for a basketball destination.

Sports media watch

This week’s big news is that Jennifer Hudson becomes the new voice for CBS Sports’ NCAA Tournament anthem “One Shining Moment.” Hudson becomes only the 4th person and the 1st woman to sing the song. Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass and the song’s composer David Barrett were the others to sing the song. I have no problem with Jennifer Hudson, she a great singer and will do great with the song. I will miss Luther Vandross and his soulful voice.
Here is the 2009 version of “One Shining Moment” with Luther Vandross.


I will have a full report of the madness and Jennifer Hudson’s version of “One Shining Moment” after the Championship Game on April 5.

Other story that caught my eye is that ESPN is producing a new two-hour programming block on ABC debuting April 3 from 4 to 6 P.M. It will be called ABC Sports Saturday. The show will generally begin with a 60-minute episode of one of the three ESPN series 30 for 30 (documentary series) E60 (60 minutes for sports fans), Homecoming with Rick Reilly (interview series) followed by the hour long Winners Bracket. Winners Bracket will be a debate show that will recap the week in sports in a bracket-style format. This looks to me like a big advertisement for ESPN programming on the main network. According to the press release this programming block is collaboration between ESPN and ABC affiliate stations. (WTNH channel 8 in Connecticut or WJAR 10 in Rhode Island) I had heard that the affiliated stations have been looking for consistant sports programming on Saturday afternoon since bowling and Wide World of Sports left ABC in the 90’s. We will see if this is going to work?

This week I have very much enjoyed Universal Sports TV two-hour daily highlights of the Winter Paralympics from Vancouver. I think its very interesting that the BBC, (British Broadcasting Corporation) the country that started the Paralympic movement, is only doing a one-hour highlight show after the Games are over but the United States finaly gets daily coverege of their great athletes. Bravo NBC Universal for a great job.
Breaking News: Tiger Woods is coming back to golf at the Master”s Tournament. I think this is a good move as the officals at Augsta National Golf Club controls every detail of the tournament, from the crowd to the media, he will be well guarded there. We will see how he plays? The Master’s is April 8 to 11.

Talk to you after the Maddness.

Jamie Lazaroff