Hoop scream: Great play glossed over
GIVEN its relatively small playing space and the fact only 10 participate at a time, there’s no easier game for TV to pay its full attention to than basketball. In theory.
In practice? Saturday’s KentuckyTexas A&M on CBS likely wouldn’t have gone to overtime had A&M guard Alex Caruso, with 1:30 left, not thrown himself at a loose ball, knocking it to a teammate.
“What a play by Caruso!” exclaimed analyst Clark Kellogg.
“It was,” said playbyplayer
Kevin Harlan.
“He gave up his body to keep that ball alive,” Kellogg added.
CBS went to commercials, returning with ample time to show tape of that play, especially after it was touted by CBS’ courtside guys. Instead, we got shots of the crowd, cheerleaders, the benches. Oddson that ESPN’s Chris
Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, during Monday’s college championship, will make quick, dutiful — as if let’s get this out of the way — work of the fact two Oregon players, including rising star wideout Darren Carrington, are out as per failed NCAA drug tests.
The biggest game in their lives! Whatever the drug, they couldn’t have waited a week? They preferred to risk infamy? Or would Carrington have been in greater TV highlights and yahooapplied peril had he played — and dropped a TD pass?
Two guys talking sports: After the Pats’ Tom BradytoJulian EdelmantoDanny
Amendola TD — a nodoubter — the game was unplugged for a mandatory replay review.
Cris Collinsworth: “You have to dissect every touchdown now.”
Al Michaels: “It’s ridiculous.” CC: “You can’t even enjoy the moment anymore.”
Although the NFL’s investigator determined the league didn’t aggressively pursue the
Ray Rice case, how vigilant was everyone else, including a national media quick to condemn
Roger Goodell?
After all, it took that second elevator video — the one with Rice’s punch to his fiancée’s head — to get everyone’s blood up.
But how, after only the first video was released — the one with Rice dragging her from the elevator — did reasonable folks think she’d been knocked cold? She fell down the steps? They were the only two in that elevator!