Some Telecasts Far From Madness Crowd

If you are unemployed, retired, work at night or able to take long lunch hours, then the tipoff time for UCLA’s not-ready-for-prime-time players today might be no big deal.

But for most, weekday basketball that begins around noon, as does the Bruins’ first-round NCAA tournament game against Tulsa, doesn’t cut it.

At least the game is being televised. California’s game Thursday against Wisconsin Green Bay wasn’t shown in Southern California. Neither will Arizona’s game today against Loyola of Maryland.

The NCAA selection committee assigned starting times to those games that fall out of CBS’ time blocks for basketball. Rick Gentile, CBS’ senior vice president of production, calls it “no man’s land.”

Said Gentile: “What are you going to do?”

Heaven forbid that CBS preempt all its daytime programming for basketball. What would all those “Geraldo” fans do?

But it sure would be nice if CBS farmed out games to ESPN. That’s the way it used to work, before CBS’ current deal with the NCAA.

CBS likes the current arrangement because the network has exclusive rights to all games. It was willing to pay $1 billion over the seven years for that.

The NCAA took the big bucks, and the little guy, such as the Cal or Arizona fan who lives in Southern California, ends up paying.

The Cal-Wisconsin Green Bay game was shown by only six CBS stations nationwide--five in Northern California and one in Green Bay. Although Cal fans might disagree after watching the 61-57 upset, the game was deserving of more exposure.

The announcers for today’s Bruin game will be Ted Robinson, a Bay Area announcer who does the Giants as well as selected Cal and Notre Dame basketball telecasts, and Greg Kelser, co-captain with Magic Johnson of the 1979 Michigan State national championship team.

Kelser works Minnesota Timberwolf cable telecasts and does college basketball for Raycom and Black Entertainment Television. Kelser also worked the tournament for CBS in 1992.

CBS has eight announcing teams working games at the eight sites this weekend. That group will be pared down to four teams next weekend.

Gentile, who decides who moves on, said he has pretty much made up his mind, but could change if there is a team that stands out this weekend, or one that falters. The announcers will learn early next week if they made the cut.

“One thing for sure, four broadcast teams aren’t going to like me very much,” Gentile said.

Commentators who impress Gentile sometimes get a cushy studio job, as did former Ohio State star Clark Kellogg this year.

Ann Meyers, working with Tim Ryan on Thursday’s Syracuse-Hawaii game, did a nice job.

There it was on national, prime-time television Wednesday night, Bob Knight being intimidated, rather than the other way around.

Bob Costas’ interview with Knight, shown on NBC’s new show, “Now,” was excellent. Costas was fair and evenhanded, yet stood his ground. He didn’t back down and refused to be bullied. And, in the end, he seemed to earn Knight’s respect.

Costas asked Knight if he had intentionally head-butted freshman guard Sherron Wilkerson last week, and if he had intentionally kicked his son Pat earlier in the season.

Knight said Wilkerson’s head simply got in his way, as had his son’s leg.

Costas gave Knight the benefit of doubt, but questioned why he would leave no margin for error, why he would come so close to a player’s head with his head or why he would kick a chair occupied by his son.

Costas also said he talked with Wilkerson, and the player told him that he believed Knight, that the head butt was accidental.

Knight’s version: “I went down and bent over, and we apparently collided heads. I didn’t even notice anything about it at the time other than two guys in close quarters.”

As for the leg-kicking incident, Pat Knight, interviewed for the feature, said, “My leg just happened to be where the chair was. I got grazed, but I mean--as you can tell--he’s going for the chair.”

Said Knight: “Patrick knows that there’s nobody else on the face of the earth that I love more than him--and he understands that. I don’t even have to worry about that. He also understands that he made a really careless bad blind pass out on top.”

Costas asked Knight if he understood parents who were hesitant about sending their sons to Indiana.

“Absolutely,” Knight said. “I simply say that I’m going to be the toughest coach he can play for. I’m going to be more demanding than any coach he can play for. He’s going to have to go to class. . . . There will be more demands placed on your son at Indiana than anywhere he could go.”

Add Knight: An interview ESPN’s Beano Cook did with Knight was shown on “SportsCenter” last weekend, and in that one there were no questions about the head-butting incident.

Jim Rome complained on XTRA Monday that Cook “softballed” Knight. Give Rome, who is also employed by ESPN, credit for not being afraid to criticize a colleague. But apparently Rome didn’t know that Cook had taped the interview before the head butt.

The complaint should have been that ESPN didn’t update the piece before showing it.