On the eve of the tourney...
 

...here we go again. Another article ripping officials. On ESPN.com this time.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/ncaato...ndy&id=3299270

Enjoy.

"There is an arrogance with the new rules, too."


Does anyone have a clue what this is supposed to mean?

Think it's clamping down on coaches behavior?

Very critical article - with quotes - "Travel is killing all these officials," and "The argument that officials are tired seems to have merit." and "Coaches are held accountable at this level, and so should officials,"

It boils down to they are PO'd that they were outbid by CBS 20+ years ago and they are reduced to studio time. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The article says that official Michael Eggers made an "over the back call". That should be the tip-off (no pun intended) right there. Another idiot article by someone named Andy Katz. He probably has the IQ of the average cat. In fact, here's a better picture of him.

http://www.richardpettinger.com/blog...stupid_cat.jpg

What is your issue with each of those statements? All three seem to have some merit.

You're kidding, right? (assuming you're talking about the merits of CBS outbidding ESPN)

Instead of having CBS's regional game selection (made by them based on what they think you want to watch) and randomly switching to other games right when the game gets interesting and never missing a chance for a commercial even if it means missing part of a great game, you'd have ESPN showing every game, live, from start to finish. One each on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Classic.

Now THAT would be heavenly. This year, CBS has lifted the blackout on the webfeed though so that you can watch any game -- no blackin out the game showing on TV in your local area. That way those of us that are working can watch whatever we want while we pretend to work.

On that note, I sent a nice sob story to Dan Patrick to see if I can get him to call my boss and get me off work this week on Thursday and Friday. I'll have to tune in tomorrow to see if he calls him.

Nevada - I have no real issues with the statements, I was just highlighting some of the points made in case someone wanted to know something about the slant of the article before they went to the link.

Two ways to deal with the CBS regional selection issue:
1. You could get a digital subscription that has all of the CBS regional feeds. That would be no different than watching the different ESPN channels.

2. NCAA March Madness on Demand Homepage: NCAAsports.com/mmod

Remember, as a VIP member you will have access to live games faster than General Admission members.

Know another College Basketball fan? Spread the word about NCAA March Madness on Demand.

Check back with us in early March, when you'll be able to watch past NCAA Championship highlights before the live games begin on March 20, 2008. Thank you again for signing up for NCAA March Madness on Demand.

I disagree with the notion that officials aren't held accountable. We all know we are, it just isn't done in a way according to their wishes, which pisses them off. As one prominent guy in our association says, "I've been hired and fired by more D1 leagues than I can count."

It's another example of coaches wanting to rule the world and thinking they know what is best for everything. (Latest example is the ESPN tirade right after the selection show where the talking heads declared that the "committee" needs to be made up of coaches and ex coaches and assistant coaches and graduate assistant coaches and team managers and ...)

The comment about "There is an arrogance with the new rules, too." is another example, coaches can't stand someone telling them how to behave on the sideline, and they perceive it as arrogance on the officials part, talk about arrogance. Well guess what coaches, the officials ARE the adjudicators of the rules, so deal with it.

True, but I get ABC and ESPN/2 in HDTV. (I get CBS that way too....and to be fair, the local OTA HDTV CBS channel does have an alternate channel so I do get one other game to pick from.

MMOD is just not that great to watch....you get to watch...that's all. No PVR features, etc.

I am dead serious about the 1st part. CBS, especially with those idiots on the selection show, has been exceptionally poor in coverage because of all of the switching, etc. But, I'm also serious about those morons in the studio deserving to be in the studio. [Brennan gets a pass here]. Espn would cover more of the games in their entirety, but they would still have problems behind the microphone, especially late in the tournament. Now if they let officials vote on the announcers....

The last sentence of the article points to what a complete imbecile this Katz guy really is:

"We'll see if there are any debatable calls -- judgment or otherwise -- in the NCAA tournament. "

What? Is he the master of debatable calls?