Southland Viewers Must Wait Awhile for NCAA Pairings

One of the highlights of the college basketball season is the announcement of the pairings for the NCAA tournament.

CBS, as it has in recent years, will televise this year’s proceedings Sunday afternoon, but in Los Angeles and a number of other West Coast cities, the half-hour announcement show will be shown on tape-delay.

The problem is that KCBS (Channel 2) in Los Angeles, KPIX (Channel 5) in San Francisco and some other West Coast CBS affiliates will be televising the championship game of the Pacific 10 tournament at UCLA while the pairings are being announced.

The pairings announcement will follow the basketball game, at 3:30 or later. By then, ESPN will be reviewing the pairings.

CBS affiliates not televising the Pac-10 game will have the pairings live at 2:30. But Channel 8 in San Diego will have no sports programming at all Sunday because of an Easter Seals telethon.

Add delay: Before the season, KCBS, KPIX and the others made a deal with Raycom, an independent production company in Charlotte, N.C., which owns the rights to Pac-10 basketball. The deal involved a package of Pac-10 games.

One of the few attractive things about the package was the championship game of the conference tournament.

It became less attractive once the conflict between the game and the announcement of the NCAA pairings was discovered.

Another problem: Channel 2 will also have to show the Pac-10 final on tape-delay because of CBS’ live coverage of the Big East tournament final, which will run from 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. at the earliest.

The Pac-10 final will begin at 1 p.m.

Paradoxically, it is being televised live by ABC to much of the country but not in cities such as Los Angeles, where the Raycom telecast is being shown. In those cities, ABC is showing the Big Eight tournament final live at 1 p.m.

Add basketball: At halftime of Sunday’s Big Eight final, ABC will have Cheryl Miller interviewing John Wooden.

At halftime of Saturday’s DePaul-Marquette game, being televised by NBC at 10 a.m., there will be a feature on Wooden’s successors at UCLA, including Walt Hazzard.

And at halftime of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament final, to be shown at 10 a.m. Sunday on NBC, the 10 finalists for the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s Wooden Award will be announced. This year, the winner will be announced April 1, two days after the NCAA championship game.

Boxing beat: Saturday night’s Mike Tyson-James (Bonecrusher) Smith fight at the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel is being billed as a semifinal in HBO’s heavyweight unification tournament. But that’s a little misleading.

The plan originally was for the winner to face Michael Spinks in May or June in the final. But Spinks has made it clear that he wants no part of Tyson, who is favored to beat Smith.

Spinks has decided he’d rather fight Gerry Cooney for about $3 million than take on Tyson for $4 million or more.

So Tyson, provided he wins Saturday, will end up fighting someone like Tony Tucker or James (Buster) Douglas. Not exactly what HBO had in mind.

Add boxing: HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant isn’t complaining. “It’s a triumph for HBO that the tournament got this far, considering the conflict of interests --and egoes,” he said.

The Tyson-Smith fight is the seventh of the tournament. Tyson, 28-0 with 26 knockouts, advanced by stopping Trevor Berbick in the second round and Smith, 19-5 with 14 knockouts, a last-minute substitute for Tony Tubbs, advanced by knocking out Tim Witherspoon in the first round.

“Smith has the best chance of anyone in the tournament of beating Tyson,” Merchant said. “He is an outstanding natural puncher.”

HBO’s coverage, beginning at 7 p.m., will also include a supporting bout between Olympic gold medalist Tyrell Biggs, 10-0 with 7 KOs, and David Bey, 14-5 with 11 KOs.

Honest opinion: Merchant and Barry Tompkins will announce the Tyson-Smith fight minus HBO commentator Sugar Ray Leonard, who is busy training for his bout April 6 with Marvin Hagler at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Merchant doesn’t see where his friend and co-worker has much of a chance in that one.

‘He’s had one fight in five years,” Merchant said during an interview. “In boxing history, never has a fighter taken time off and then returned and immediately won a title fight.”

Merchant, as he does in an HBO special being shown this month, “Road to the Superfight,” cited two successful comebacks, those of Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

But, he said, Sugar Ray Robinson had six tuneup fights, one of which he lost, before stopping Bobo Olson to regain his middleweight title in 1954 after having retired two years earlier. And Muhammad Ali, after 3 1/2 years of inactivity, fought Jerry Quarry and Oscar Bonavena before meeting Joe Frazier in a title fight. And that was the one he lost.

“There is the unknown factor. There is that one chance that Ray, being the great athlete that he is, can do something that has never been done,” Merchant said. “But from what we know, he has very little chance.

“It’s difficult for me to say that, but I have to do what I have to do. I can’t duck the issue. I believe that I should be as candid as I would want other people to be with me.”

Add Leonard-Hagler: The fight may figure as a mismatch, but that hasn’t curbed the public’s interest.

Rick Kulis, president of Choice Channel, which along with Prime Ticket is distributing the fight to Southern California cable companies for a pay-per-view showing, said sales are going very well. Kulis said he is expecting about 105,000 cable subscribers to sign up for the fight.

By comparison, about 10,000 subscribers viewed last fall’s pay-per-view showing of the USC-UCLA football game.

Only addressable cable companies are offering the fight. The price generally is $30 now, and it will increase to $35 March 23. Some companies are charging more.

TV-Radio Notes The first of Channel 11’s four Dodger spring telecasts is set for Sunday at 10:30 a.m. PST, when the team plays Atlanta. . . . Vin Scully, because of NBC golf commitments, won’t be joining Ross Porter and Jerry Doggett until March 22. . . . A Dodger special, “Made in California,” will be televised by Channel 11 Saturday at 8:30 p.m. The half-hour show, with Rick Monday as host, will feature current and former Dodgers from Southern California, including newcomers Matt Young of Sierra Madre and Tim Leary of Santa Monica, both former UCLA pitchers. . . . Sunday’s Santa Anita Handicap will be previewed during a one-hour show on Channel 56 tonight at 8, after the regular “Racing From Santa Anita” program. Charleye Wright is the host and guests include trainers Charlie and Michael Whittingham and Carl Grinstead, Snow Chief’s co-owner.

Thomas Hearns will fight on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” Saturday, facing Dennis Andries, World Boxing Council light-heavyweight champion. Hearns is attempting to become the ninth boxer to have won three world titles. The only man who held three at one time, Henry Armstrong, now 74, will be interviewed by Alex Wallau during the program. . . . NBC cut away from the Women’s Kemper Open last Sunday and missed the one-hole playoff between Jane Geddes and Cathy Gerring. In the East, it was time for nightly news. But there was no reason to leave the tournament in Western time zones. “In retrospect, we should have stayed with the tournament in the West,” said an NBC spokesman. . . . Kudos to ABC for its coverage of the Race Across America bicycle event last Sunday. Producer Joel Feld, who edited 3,000 minutes of footage down to 79 minutes, came up with an excellent show. The project took five months. . . . Channel 13 put a lot of effort into covering last Sunday’s L.A. Marathon, but the show was widely criticized. One problem was the communications system wasn’t working. Unfortunately, the announcers never explained that to the viewers.