On TV, the Price Is Wrong for West Coast NCAA Teams

By Mike Penner

March 15, 2002 12 AM PT

They were talking about seeds, they were talking about pods, they were talking about digging holes, they were talking about laying bricks.

So, how does Clark Kellogg’s garden grow?

It grows today without some of the brightest blooms of West Coast basketball--no USC, no Gonzaga, no Pepperdine--all weeded out in Thursday’s first round of the NCAA tournament.

You can hear the self-satisfied cackling now echoing from the Atlantic to the Mississippi.

So, it turns out Gonzaga was over-seeded.

So, it turns out USC couldn’t win the Pac-10 . . . or the Colonial Athletic Assn. either.

Every March, the Pac-10 and the West Coast Conference and the Mountain West Conference dispatch teams to the NCAA tournament with the following marching orders:

1. Here’s your 40 minutes in the national spotlight--do what you can with it.

2. Show the East Coast establishment that the basketball played out here is worth staying up late for.

Unless, of course, you’re the reigning Pac-10 champions from the University of Oregon.

In which case, you had zero minutes in the national spotlight Thursday.

That’s right. The Ducks, outright conference champions for the first time since 1939, angling for their first NCAA victory since 1960, extended one of the season’s most unlikely success stories with a first-round victory over Montana--and 94% of the country missed it.

That included the Los Angeles area, which had to settle for “The Price Is Right” and Judge Judy instead of Luke Ridnour cranking them up from 25 feet. Unless you lived in Oregon, Montana, Washington or Northern California, CBS wasn’t giving you anything in gold and green, not even one measly “Live Look-In.”

This is why CBS, despite its avalanche of publicity and useful bracket-tracking Website, will never surpass ESPN when it comes to covering the NCAA tournament. The early rounds, the first Thursday and Friday, demand all-day coverage, which is the kind of commitment all-sports ESPN could give it during the 1980s.

But CBS has local affiliates to placate. So at 2:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, the NCAA tournament took a two-hour break, even if no one informed Oregon and Montana, who played on throughout a near coast-to-coast television blackout while CBS affiliates cut away to the evening news (in Eastern and Central time zones) and must-see daytime filler (welcome to L.A.).

By now, you’d have to suspect Oregon is developing a complex.

Its top-of-the-first-round NFL prospect, quarterback Joey Harrington--snubbed by the Heisman electorate.

Its once-defeated football team--snubbed by the BCS.

Its out-of-nowhere Pac-10 champion basketball squad--snubbed by CBS.

Instead, this was the scouting report the country got on the Pac-10 Thursday:

Arizona had to struggle to hold off UC Santa Barbara.

Stanford proved itself better than Western Kentucky.

USC had to scramble from 19 points back just to force overtime against North Carolina Wilmington. And once there, with the 13th-seeded Seahawks seemingly out of gas and luck, the Trojans faltered again, dropping out of the tournament with a 93-89 loss.

How could this happen? CBS’ courtside broadcasters, Ian Eagle and Jim Spanarkel, were both at a loss.

With Wilmington holding an 88-83 lead in the extra period, a stunned Eagle said, “It figured when USC made their run to force overtime, the potential was there for [the Seahawks] to have nothing left in the extra session.”

“Absolutely,” Spanarkel agreed. “I thought they would crumble after that, the way [USC] tied the basketball game.”

No one managed much of an answer, least of all the coaches. Because the game went longer than expected, and because CBS had other games backed up for quick cutaway, neither USC’s Henry Bibby nor Wilmington’s Jerry Wainwright were interviewed on camera.

CBS had to move to Albuquerque, where Arizona’s Wildcats were blinking in disbelief at Mark Hull’s three-point clinic, for play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson to offer the most reasonable theory:

“I believe USC got caught looking ahead to Duke (in the third round).... They thought they could get by Duke.”

Instead, the Trojans were knocked out by another team from North Carolina separated by a universe or two from Duke, a team that won in spite of some obvious down-the-stretch jitters.

When the Seahawks fouled USC’s Brandon Granville on a three-point attempt while holding a six-point lead with 10.2 seconds remaining in overtime, Eagle said, “It begs the question, why?”

“There really isn’t a basketball answer for that,” Spanarkel replied.

Ask an Oregon fan why the Ducks weren’t on national TV Thursday. You’ll probably get the same response.