Friday, March 21, 2008

Why doesn't CBS understand this NCAA-college-basketball-tournament thing they've been covering since, like, forever?

Enter "Duke sucks" in a Google Image Search, and this is #9. WTF?

Tonight, as I watch at 8:36 p.m., the score of the North Carolina vs. Mt. St. Mary's (or whatever school) game is 80-52. This has been the featured game since the 7:00 start. It's still on.

I understand that schools like UNC have a large fan base. However, while that utter-blowout-and-therefore-uninteresting game is proving every single person who filled out a bracket correct (There has never been a 16-seed-over-1-seed upset.), there are three other, vastly more interesting games going on. One is 8-seed Oregon vs. 9-seed Mississippi St. (8-9 games being closer because the teams are -- shockingly? -- more evenly matched); another is 6-seed Oklahoma vs 11-seed St. Joe's (not that close at this point, so not so much of a problem with it not being on); and the last is 13-seed Siena up by 10 against 4-seed Vanderbilt. As the Dude once said, "That's interesting, that's fucking interesting, man!" But is that the game CBS chooses to display? (No.)

Last night, the first game on CBS's schedule was 2-seed and all-time-media-fellating-team-that-everyone-else-everywhere-in-the-world (except douchebag rapists who went there) despises, Duke (Except fucking Chuck, who has inexplicably liked Duke since I've known him. In fact, I'm all about removing him from this blog simply for that. I haven't even said something like that about his yankee-liking, so that should give you some idea of the absurdity of his liking Duke.) vs. Belmont.

Yes, the game turned out to be pretty awesome. But that's not the point. No one thought Belmont would give Duke a game. At the same time as that game, 6-seed USC faced 11-seed Kansas State. To the untrained eye, that might not be that appealing, but that game happened to feature the two most exciting (and probably best) players in college basketball: USC's O.J. Mayo (Why, if your first name is O.J. would you go to USC, I might ask. There was a certain Heisman Trophy-winning...) and K-State's Michael Beasley.

So, CBS chose Duke over the two most exciting players in the game facing each other for the first and only time.

Okay, now as I have been typing this, CBS has switched over to the Vandy-Siena game. Whew. I hope UNC's lead is still safe. (It's 94-52 now. Yes, since a few paragraphs ago, UNC went on a 14-0 run.)

The media's affair with Duke is well-documented, so I feel no need to give three examples or anything. Just Google "Duke sucks" or something and you can see (above).

But it still baffles me that CBS, despite having been the network covering the NCAA Tournament since before I can remember, doesn't understand that most people don't watch college basketball except for this tournament. And the thing we all love most about it is upsets. We know that a 16-seed isn't going to beat a 1-seed. We also know that 12-seeds often beat 5-seeds. We know that the 8-9 matchup is the closest, and generally leads to some very exciting games.

What's most exciting about the tournament? The buzzer-beaters. And just today, there were two (kinda). One involved 12-seed Western Kentucky winning on an unbelievable 3-pointer at the buzzer over 5-seed Drake (which ear-raped my bracket, thanks Drake); the other was 13-seed San Diego over 4-seed UConn (which did like a priest just touching my penis -- rather than making me suck his -- kind of thing to my bracket; I had UConn losing next round.).

Ultimately, I guess this is just another fruitless plea to the national sports media to do better. Plenty of sites devote all their energy just to that, and they're worth reading and supporting. But this is just my nickel minus three. (Let me know if that's stupid. I saw a commenter make it somewhere and thought it was clever. Maybe it isn't. But if it is, I'm gonna use it all the time and never admit that I read it anywhere. Except here, I guess.)

Oh, and one last thing.

I haven't done a Friday Classic Video in a while, but I feel like this one is pretty cool. You've all seen the 2 Girls, 1 Cup thing. Wait, I mean, I've seen it, because I'm not a pussy. The other writers of this blog are, in fact, pussies for not watching it. Both of you other readers who actually have penises (or vaginas, but watched it nonetheless, and therefore aren't "pussies" because while your womanhood endows you a vagina, within that vagina lie more balls than my co-writers have put together) would enjoy this.

This does not in any way show the actual video, but if you've ever seen that angry German kid watching that other thing and screaming like Germans are wont to do, this will be pretty funny.


Two Girls, One Angry German Kid - Watch more free videos

(Another stunner -- we've never had a "Lebowski quotes" tag?)

9 comments:

Open Bar said...

In fairness to CBS, the later games have been broken up nicely. I've seen some (5) Clemson vs. (12) Villanova and now the coverage is -- properly -- (8) Indiana vs. (9) Arkansas.

But still, fuck Duke, who we will definitely see tomorrow night. Definitely.

Anonymous said...

1) "Ear-raped"?!? I've never heard that used in context before.

2) Chuck is a Duke fan? I can't believe nobody ever told me this. You think you know somebody.

The Notorious LJT said...

Chuck likes any team that is good.

I've known him to be a fan the Dodgers, Athletics, Mets and Yankees in the last twenty years.

The Notorious LJT said...

and, ohbytheway, not into the 'nickel minus three' thing.

ChuckJerry said...

I've been known to be a bandwagoner, but let's be fair. The two teams I have always routed for are the Knicks and Duke.

All other mocking is fair game.

And I agree, the coverage has been lame. I was really looking forward to that USC vs. Kansas St. game. And yesterday while Siena was playing a great game and I had to watch UNC embarrass Mt. St. Mary's (on Good Friday, no less) I was nonplussed.

The Notorious LJT said...

i actually posted something with the big lebowski as a tag, you fucking bitch, Open Bar.

http://wheres-luke.blogspot.com/2007/08/today-i-bring-you-two-of-my-favorite.html

Open Bar said...

I said Lebowski quotes you dumb fuck, not The Big Lebowski.

Oh, and Dear Chuck,

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

love,
West Virginia

The Notorious LJT said...

touche'

Anonymous said...

For whatever reason down here in NC (that is probably the reason in itself) Time Warner Cable expands its channel lineup and has on every single game of the tourney. So there are 4 channels and we get every game in HD. Until this year I didn't realize no other market (that I know of) does this. Also, it was pretty sweet watching Davidson beat Gtown live. Go Heels! You need to post these:

The original one:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYOgC2Qbqh4

The new one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkwpAKUxv0