Channel 2 Delaying the NCAA Pairings? Why, It’s Madness!

They call it March Madness.

If you have cable, you can watch college basketball almost around the clock this weekend, beginning at 9 a.m. today with Atlantic Coast Conference tournament games on ESPN.

ESPN will televise seven games live on Saturday, a single-day record.

Even without cable, there is still plenty of basketball. There will be four games on the major network stations Saturday and four more Sunday.

A highlight of it all comes when the NCAA tournament pairings are announced Sunday on CBS.

The rest of the nation will get the news of the tournament field live at 3:30 p.m., PST.

But Channel 2 will delay the pairings announcement at least 15 to 30 minutes, an annoyance to basketball junkies who want to know who’s in and who’s not right away.

Jay Strong, Channel 2’s director of programming, is faced with an impossible juggling act.

CBS’ coverage of the Big East tournament final begins at 11:30 a.m. and figures to end sometime after 1:30 p.m.

But starting at 1 p.m. is the Pacific 10 tournament final, which is part of the Raycom Productions package that Channel 2 has bought.

“We could join the Pac-10 game in progress after the Big East game,” Strong said, “but I don’t want to do that. If somehow UCLA is in it and we joined it 30 or 40 minutes late, that would not be good.

“I’d rather delay the game and show it in its entirety, and then delay the pairings announcement show.”

Strong said his station is also planning a special Keith Olbermann postgame show after the Pac-10 final. So, at best, the station won’t be clear until 3:45--and more likely 4 p.m.--for the pairings show.

Things could be worse. In recent years, the tournament pairings announcement has come at 2:30, but the NCAA moved it back an hour.

ESPN is planning a rundown of the NCAA pairings during halftime of the Big West tournament final, which it is televising. Halftime should be about 3:45 p.m.

Add Channel 2: Olbermann claims his contract with the station does not expire this summer, as reported in this space last week. He said it has 3 1/2 years remaining.

Olbermann also said Channel 7’s Todd Donoho was not the sportscaster he had in mind when he said, “The producers of the Keith Olbermann Show say if you want to listen to a whiny, nasal sportscaster, change the dial now.”

He did not specify the target for his barb.

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what Olbermann is trying to do.

Over the long haul, Channel 13 last weekend had its best Los Angeles Marathon coverage in the five years it has covered the event, and producer Phil Olsman and his crew are to be congratulated.

Technically, there were few major flaws, which is saying a lot when you consider how difficult it is to cover an event spread over 26-plus miles.

And Phil Stone, a late addition, did a commendable job as host of the telecast.

But the announcing overall was simply too gushy. The announcers sounded much like Chris Schenkel doing college football.

Maybe you can’t blame them. Nancy Ditz, a commentator last year, pointed out that the prize money was not on par with some other major marathons, so L.A. Marathon organizer Bill Burke had her taken off this year’s telecast.

The message seemed to be this: Say anything negative and you won’t be saying anything at all in the future.

Rick Feldman, Channel 13 station manager, denied this.

“We had a meeting last Friday,” he said, “and I told the announcers, ‘This is my station and my airtime. Feel free to say anything you want, as long as it is truthful.’ ”

It sounded as if the announcers didn’t want to take that chance.

Add marathon: Producer Olsman said the news of the death of a runner, William McKinney, 59, of Altadena, wasn’t reported during Channel 13’s coverage because of time constraints.

“We knew something had happened right when we were about to go off the air,” Olsman said. “We knew an ambulance was on the course, and we sent a crew over there, but we weren’t able to get any concrete information before we went off the air. Had we known more, we might have stayed on the air.”

Last add marathon: Channel 13 has four years left on its contract with Burke, but only next year’s race is locked up. After that, according to Feldman, the contract allows Burke to make a deal with a major network if he can.

TV-Radio Notes

Channel 2 will televise only one Pacific 10 tournament semifinal Saturday, at 3 p.m., and UCLA is not in that bracket. Channel 2 can’t do the 1 p.m. semifinal because of CBS’ coverage of a Big East semifinal, so it won’t be shown in the Southland. If UCLA reaches the semifinals, Channel 2 will take some heat. . . . Prime Ticket will televise one Big West semifinal Saturday night at 7, ESPN the other at 9.

CBS will address the problems plaguing college athletics in a half-hour show Saturday at 10 a.m. James Brown will monitor a round-table discussion with Dick Shultz, the executive director of the NCAA; Nolan Richardson, Arkansas basketball coach; Father William Beauchamp, Notre Dame’s executive vice president, and Sports Illustrated’s Curry Kirkpatrick. Brown, who was a basketball star at Harvard, said he would like to see more restraint on sports. “The college presidents need to put the reins on sports and return to the days of student-athletes instead of the athlete-students we have today,” he said.

It would seem that ESPN and CBS might start putting some pressure on baseball to end the lockout, considering the money at stake. . . . ESPN has already scheduled replacement programming for spring training telecasts scheduled this month in prime time (early evening in the West). The dates are March 20, 25, 27 and 29. The March 20 replacement programming is live NIT action, March 25 is NCAA wrestling, March 27 is college baseball and March 29 is auto racing. . . . If and when they do start playing at Dodger Stadium, KNX’s Pete Arbogast will be the public-address announcer. He replaces Nick Nickson, who resigned because of increased involvement as the Kings’ radio and TV commentator.

CBS will devote two hours of prime time Saturday night, 8 to 10, to the World Figure Skating Championships. . . . CBS will televise the Lakers’ game at Atlanta Sunday at 9 a.m. . . . It was announced this week that many Oakland Raiders of the 1970s, such as Ken Stabler, Mark van Eeghen and Ben Davidson, will play a flag football game against a team of Dallas Cowboys of the ‘70s in Oakland on July 26. Highlights will be televised on NBC two days later.

KFWB reporter Sharon Katchen should get hazardous-duty pay for covering the Los Angeles Marathon. She ran the course carrying a six-pound cellular backpack and, despite suffering from a severe sinus infection, finished in 6 hours 50 minutes. . . . Rick Kulis, Southern California pay-per-view executive, says he has purchased 40% of the struggling Las Vegas Silver Streaks of the World Basketball League. Kulis, chief executive officer of Torrance-based Choice Entertainment, said he paid about $200,000 for the interest in the Las Vegas franchise of the under 6-foot-5 league. The Silver Streaks were run by the league last year, and the WBL will maintain a 60% share of the franchise. The team begins its home season May 14.