Bill Frieder is a disgrace.

He didn't talk a lot near the end of Stan-Marq game so maybe that's why I liked him. Sims was solid though and his call of the UCLA win was awesome.

Wayne Larrivee and Kevin Grevey on the call from Tampa for Westwood One.

Dave Sims is one of the better play-by play guys in the business why he does not get a national tv gig baffles me.

Brando - "Happy Bunny Rabbit Day to you, too."

.

Sims is great. He recently became a full time announcer for the Seattle Mariners so that has limited his work. He cut back on college hoops this season as he usually covered a full slate of Big East hoops for ESPN+ in the past but did not this season. He did only a few games.

A team from the Albany area is playing a team from Philadelphia.

Lots of national interest there.

Dave Sims has gone from a great newspaper reporter to a great play-by-play guy... I bet he'll get the call up to TV soon.

I also like listening to Joey Wahler on the radio broadcast, but that's my Seton Hall bias showing as Joey is a SHU alum.

happy bunny rabbit day, is so... ridiculous

awful

Dave Sims used to have more of a prominent role on ESPN (he called the Lamar Odom half court game in the A10 finals 10 years ago), but either because they phased him out (still does Big East football games for ESPN Plus) or because he's on the Sunday Night broadcast on Westwood One, he's just not on TV as much, if at all.

Happy Easter to all.

Little late to the show, but i'm here...

After an entire day yesterday of HD, CBS has once again broke my will and is showing this game in HD...

* is NOT showing this game in HD i mean. Stupid hangover...

Really? That blows Smitty. Maybe I'm getting your feed because mine looks great for once.

Um, a few people live in Philadelphia. We're not talking about Cheyenne here.

I get two CBS channels - the HD one and the standard def one. The picture on the standard def is better than the one on the HD channel right now.

This happened all day on thursday and friday, thought they had it figured out yesterday...

Ridiculous.

"villanova by a bakers dozen"

Tim Brando makes me want to go Van Gogh on my ears... I can't take any more of these puns!

I like how when showing replays of the end of WKU-Drake, CBS has replaced Brando's call w/ WKU radio's call.

"Oh and I found a list of what affiliates that are carrying which games later on today. Take a look below...." Um, I posted that towards the end of the Saturday thread...

Tim Brando with another 'Reynolds wrapped' reference. What an idiot.

Sorry Morgan. I haven't even gone back and read that thread yet. Haven't had time, but thank you for posting it.

"Mark it down, Ubiles with his first field goal at the 15:40 mark of the second half" - Brando with 14:40 remaining... not only is he unfunny, he's dyslexic too.

Is anyone really interested in this game? I find myself watching soccer instead of this game...

Ha...I've been watching Mystery, Alaska than the game. Pretty boring, but they're not all going to be great.

Instead of the game I mean.

smitty lite, a few dozen people on the East Coast are interestd. So yes, in their eyes, everyone is interested. You East Coast people just have no idea how annoying this is in the rest of the country. If this would have been Clemson/Vanderbilt, you would have freaked--except CBS wouldn't have made it national

Can't the Will Ferrell "Semi-Pro" commercials go away, already?

Yeah, now i'm watching Spurs-Mavs...

Um, I don't think CBS would have made this game national if they thought they would get freakin' Siena instead of Vanderbilt. And Clemson is near the East Coast too, ya know. Some people are blinded by their perception of an East Coast bias...

"It's one thing to deny, it's another thing to undress" -Gminski

Brando - "Villanova's been through the Class of Hard Knocks in the Big East."

Class of hard knocks... That's funny..

IT'S NOT AN EAST COAST BIAS.

It's a New York/Philadelphia/Boston/Washington/Chicago/Los Angeles bias. A.K.A. Big Market Bias. That's why we get a dozen Big East basketball games for every one SEC game. I love it when people say crap like "what about the Lakers and USC--see, there's no bias." It's because you're looking at the wrong bias.

"He's only six assists away from a triple double. And two rebounds."

So umm, he's nowhere close to a triple-double...

You East Coast people just have no idea how annoying this is in the rest of the country.

For your argument's sake, I hope Anons 1:57 & 2:07 aren't the same one...

Couldn't they have done a better job spreading the games out today? Only one on now, then four coming up in the next window, then three tonight...

Teams still in the tournament: Big East 4, SEC and ACC combined: 4 although that's likely to be 3 after Miami gets toasted by Texas.

Kinda unfair to count teams left in the tourney before today is over...

Yeah, it's a big market bias, and Siena is from that astoundingly huge market of Albany, NY... and they've certainly been exposed to death on TV over the years, yes siree...

And why does the big market bias not include the Bay Area or Texas? Or Atlanta? Replace Texas with Dallas and they're all bigger markets than Washington, and Houston is one rank lower than DC (although Washington gets bigger if you add Baltimore, but Dallas and the Bay Area are still bigger than Bahston). It is at least partially an East Coast (specifically BosWash) bias.

Anon- CBS wants it's best games and most popular teams later in the day. More people watch in Primtime especially on a Holiday.

I really don't understand what this has to do with a bias. They're just getting the shitty games out of the way as early as possible.

Plus your math is wrong, since there's 5 ACC/SEC teams left to play just today...

Well, they are connected. The reason why people bitch (incorrectly) about the perceived East Coast bias is because of the relationship between the biggest television markets and the East Coast. But just because the correct theory includes cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and the like, it doesn't mean that the East Coast isn't being catered to more than the rest of the country.

Hey! We switched to the Texas-Miami game!

And hey, it is also not in HD. Awesome...

Is it really this hard?

I wouldn't deny for a second that there is a bias, but I don't see what that has to do with airing a Vill-Siena game at Noon on a Sunday.

I like those 'dude' commercials...

There, i said it.

Next, you'll be admitting you like those 'Coke Zero' lawsuit commercials.

Rick James- Never!

AA, it has to do with the whole country getting it, and then scheduling a quadrupleheader in the second window. Why couldn't they have gone doublheader/tripleheader so that the people outside of Philadelphia can enjoy the first game too?

Anyone here a bettor? What's with this G'Town line at -5 over Davidson? And it's going down! It was 5.5 yesterday! Am i missing something?

I just got flipped to Tenn-Buter. Also not in HD.

I'm going to break something soon...

Prince from Tenn. (a soph) is making his first collegiate start today. Don't you think you would choose another time to do this...

Okay now I'm on the same page Anon. I really think it has something to do with the Holiday.

@smitty lite:

Brandon Marshall would approve of you breaking your own TV.

http://thebiglead.com/?p=5110

Doesn't CBS plan the 2nd round schedule before the games are over? Obviously, they were planning on Vandy and/or Clemson advancing. If Belmont won on Thursday, we would have had Belmont-W Virginia in the national slot yesterday.

"was that from Little Rock or North Little Rock" - Ian Eagle

@rick-

Yeah, yeah it was an 'accident'. I 'fell' into my tv, that's how it got broken...

Ha...we caught that one at the same time Anon. Butler looks like complete shit.

Aarrgghh! CBS is upsetting me today. Yesterday i had HD on one channel and a second game on the standard def channel, so i could watch two games.

Today, there's no HD and the same game on both channels...

Speaking of Trent Johnson from Stanford - Why did he get tossed last night? I missed it...

"As Johnson got tossed last night." - Verne Lundquist

Well that's a shame.

"Atchley's the guy they're going to more than... often" -Jim Spanarkel, botching the phrase

Anyone else waiting for Brando to say the following?

This ain't Carmen San Diego!

This ain't Western Kentucky Fried Chicken!

This ain't Go San Diego Go!

"Yep, Johnson from behind" - Jim Spanarkel

Progress! Got switched to G'Town-Davidson on one channel...

Are you serious? I got switched to WKU/USD?

@SS- Ouch. That sucks...

Shit! Spoke too soon, they flipped me to from G'Town/Davidson to SD/WKU also...

"Gyno Pomare with the offensive put back." - Tim Brando

As opposed to those defensive put backs you see all day.

Well I've got David-Gtown so at least we've got all the games covered.

"A little bunny hop on Easter Sunday." - Tim Brando

Well I have Butler/Tennessee on the other channel so that means I have successfully avoided Billy Packer for at least 2 hours.

Greg Gumbel is the WORST tele-prompter reader EVER.

Butler is making a game of it now.

This Butler/Tenn game isn't too bad...

When he gets excited, Bill Raftery sounds like an awful lot like a pissed off Robert Loggia.

Smitty:

First, the blame for not getting games in HD should go to your CBS station, not CBS.

Second, I suspect your CBS station is actually trying to show all four games and doesn't have enough bandwidth to do HD for one. Yesterday there wasn't four games in one time slot so it wasn't a problem. Why it's abandoning HD for the whole day for the sake of one time slot is beyond me.

CBS should really set up a second channel designated to show an alternate game for the entire country, maybe CBS College Sports or even the CW...

Does anyone want to bring back James Brown to replace the travesty that is Tim Brando?

Ummm no. I don't care if Tim Brando starts making Oregon Trail references ...no one will ever be as bad as Jim Brown.

@Morgan- Yeah i'm not sure who to blame, but i do think it's a bit ridiculous we can't get a single game in HD today, when every window yesterday had one.

I also like your idea of another channel for games. Shouldn't they offer some sort of package a la Sunday Ticket for March Madness? Who wouldn't pay $100 for the ability to see every game from home?

They do Smitty but much like the NFL Ticket...it's only on DirecTV.

Maybe Carter Blackburn got his feet wet in that first game.

I would pair him up with Gminski and have Brando handle morning game presenting while Gumbel does the rest.

But what would you do to get rid of Bolerwenzel?

I can't really complain. I think it is cool that all of the games are on the internet for free. I am receiving Georgetown vs Davidson on television and Tennessee vs Butler on the net.

"Well, you might say Campbell is M'm! M'm! Good" -Raftery

"It's a Texas THREE party here in Little Rock." - Ian Eagle

Hello? Hello? Hello?

Echo Echo Echo Echo

I want to make an interesting comparison between the NFL and the NCAA Tournament.

As an aside, I tried to use MMOD the other day and it screwed up my computer, but it could just be me (IE7, Windows XP, my hard disk has scratches on it and is on its second Windows installation, no viruscan programming).

Regardless, its existence as well as the sheer number of affiliates putting up alternate feeds shows that there's clear demand for as many NCAA games as possible available for free. (Well, "free", at least.)

In the NFL, you do get two games on CBS and Fox when your local team isn't playing at home, but that's it, probably partly because the NFL is insanely protective of Sunday Ticket and partly to keep the HD feed unsullied.

If the NFL wasn't quite so protective of Sunday Ticket, do you think we'd get more games each Sunday if we looked on our CBS and Fox stations' alternate feeds?

"When you lay off the cheeseburgers, good things happen." - Bill Raftery

"Campbell waiting, salivating!" - Bill Raftery

"They've got Beasley under there banging." - Raftery

The 3 of us all have Raftery quotes within a minute.

"It's March, anything can happen!"--Ian Eagle

is it me? or is Diana Taurasi hideously ugly? I mean, that closeup in that new nike commercial is terrible.

AA,
Love how Nantz keeps telling us the team Stephen Curry lit up in last year's tournament.

That's nice how his mom is wearing a red bra today to support Davidson.

Well that's it for me. I had Georgetown in the Final Four. God, this year's tourney has screwed my bracket up faster than George Mason did when they went to the Final Four.

"It doesn't work when you just keep breathing in!" -Raftery, reminding us how to properly breathe

"Feel free to exhale!" Raftery
"It doesn't work if you just keep breathing in" Lundquist

marc - She is a horse face.

And anyone else have whiplash from being shuttled back and forth between Raleigh and Birmingham?

(Sigh...) Yet another game that is once again not in HD...

@ smitty - what kind of feed are you getting that you don't get HD?

@mal- I have Dish Network. Had HD all day yesterday, haven't had it once today. Didn't have it thursday or friday at night either...

Eagle: "This is Swat Central."

Eye-an's gonna blow through all of his blocking cliches (having already called the game a 'block party.')

Gotta go with DirecTV. The March Madness deal is pretty cool. On some of the feeds you don't even get the commercials and if you are really in to a specific game there is no whip-lashing back and forth. Plus - all HD!

@Mal - I hate you...

@smitty - they still haven't figured out a way to substitute Wenzel's audio with something less annoying like a crying baby on an airplane.

Eagle: "Varnardo. Oh the length!"

Raftery after Oklahoma doesn't get back on defense: "That says tardy, absent-minded and not being prepared". Ouch. What do you really, think Bill.

UNC looks strong early...

I have issues at times when I'm whip-lashed from one game to another where it will go from HD to non-HD for a bit, but it corrects itself usually in about 5-10 minutes. That's for me anyway.

I have the Brighthouse HD Package and such that they offer here in Alabama. I've had all my games I've watched so far this weekend HD except for like I said, those little periods where they are back in SD for a few minutes.

Georgetown losing made me sad. One of my Final Four teams has fallen. I'm not having a good pick 'em this year.

Jim Nantz: "The last hope for the SEC on the floor right now."

Never mind that Tennessee has won, or that Mississippi State is playing right now as well.

That's upsetting me as well. Local, small cable companies can put all the games in HD, but Dish Network can't. Frustrating...

And yes, i've become a complete HD whore...

Damn it! Who decides when to switch games? They just switched my 2nd game (UNC/Ark) over to Louisville/Oklahoma, which i have on my 1st station. So now i have two stations showing the exact same game.

To have had so many good games in the last "window", these aren't looking worth a crap. UNC up by 24 U of L up by 17 and Memphis up by 9 at the half.

Well, now that I know Smitty has Dish Network, I want to retract blame for your local station, but something tells me some of it has to go to them... I'd complain to Dish first (you should get the Sweet 16 on in HD, so your complaint is about next year) and if they direct you to your local station complain to them as well.

Louisville makes buzzerbeater at half. Replay shows shot off with 00.1 seconds.

"A tenth. No, a hundredth, of a second left." -- Verne Lundquist

Miss St within 3! May have a ballgame to watch this evening after all.

Raftery describing Louisville's timeout huddle after Lundquist had read the 60 Minutes-David Beckham promo, "Speaking of Beckham, a lot of spice in that huddle!"

i'm watching the end of the Memphis game and this has nothing to do with basketball but this quote just drifted into my mind from this week's episode of America's Best Dance Crew on MTV courtesy of Lil' Mama --
"because dreams + inspiration = destiny..."

Ian Eagle is the best announcer. He makes the whole game exciting. Gus is the best in the dramatic though. Ian needs to get a region.

"These refs don't want dinner, do they?" - Raff

A minute left and North Carolina up by almost 40. you know what that means...White Wash time!!! The Tarheels now have five short white guys on the floor.

TV Nation has a fat old hard one for Tyler Hansbrough. With the outcome well in hand, he just went through a Arkansas guy's forearm to block his shot. And when UNC cried foul, so did Jim and Billy "You can't block a shot any better than that!" said Packer. My ass.

Tim Brando = Stan Smith, "American Dad" with even lamer wordplay

Ian Eagle is doing a regional on Westwood One radio next weekend. He will be in Phoenix with Bill Frieder.

Have the regional announcing teams been set yet? I'd assume Nantz goes to Charlotte, Vernquist is in Houston, GuJo is in Motown and Enberg gets Phoenix though.

Anyone have the Radio announcing schedule?

no comment you blogged about today was any dumber than Miami radio hack Joe Zagacki's remark when the first Augustin free throw airballed.
"He shot an airball...maybe he did it on purpose!!!"