ESPN soapbox

[OldHoyafan]

This was a great game. Georgetown took the no. 7 team in the nation to overtime at their house and ESPN does not show any highlights during the games they had on ESPN and ESPN2. We do get to see St John's upset of no. 17 Pitt at the garden . Unbelievable.

[Diablo]

They were showing game updates with highlights on ESPN News.

[Big Dog]

Highlights up again in about a minute

[lichoya68]

when will they learn they and others missed agreat game gu syacuse as usual just think if brandon was one quarter of an inch smaller footed wow they really woulda been ticked go hoyas make them put us on tv you make me proud to be a hoya

[TBird41]

I saw in game updates during the Michigan st. Purdue game-they cut to it live a couple of times (or at least showed the most recent highlight). I'm pretty sure that was ESPN.

[Jack]

Andy Katz wrote a good piece last week that gives some insight on the TV/scheduling practices of the ACC:
sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=1966924

If the Big East system is similar- and one would guess it is, albeit more complicated because several teams do not play on campus in the Big East- then you really have to wonder what network executives were thinking when they passed up this game. Of course expectations were low coming into the season for Georgetown, and no one would argue that they were not deserving many prime time appearances. It is hard to argue with choosing many of the Big Monday matchups on the schedule over this game, and ESPN really only shows the Big East on Monday nights on any consistent basis, and never on Tuesday nights.

That said, if ESPN gets to dictate what games are scheduled when, it is impossible to imagine what they were thinking when they chose Syracuse @ Rutgers for Big Monday next week rather than making Georgetown @ Syracuse play on that night and shifting the schedule around so that St. John's played @ Georgetown this week. The story line of a coach named John Thompson taking Georgetown into the Carrier Dome had to be more compelling than the Orangemen at the RAC to the network execs even back in June. A quick perusal of the Big East telecast schedule www.bigeast.org/sports/mbball/compsked.asp shows at least 9 games being broadcast on the ESPN family of networks this year that are clearly less appealing than this contest now, and I believe less appealing even back before the season started and schedules were being made. Granted, several of those are late pick-ups for ESPN Classic on Wednesday nights (including two GU contests), but I would have to think Syracuse would have been willing and able to move this game back one night and ESPN Classic would have been all over such a, um, Classic rivalry.

Finally, even assuming that nothing could be done about getting this game nationally televised because the folks at ESPN honestly thought it would be a 50 point blowout and Georgetown fans would number in the dozens by the time it was played, there was still the ESPN Full Court option so that it could be shown regionally and picked up on satellite packages nationally. There was a production crew at the game, and the only other Big East game on Full Court last night was Pitt @ St. John's- a non-rivalry game involving the only team picked to be worse than the Hoyas. It did turn out to be a nice upset for the Johnnies, but once again it is not a choice that makes any sense, either in October or in January. Worse, it did not have to be an either/or proposition- both games could and should have been televised somewhere.

So what do we take from all of this? Does ESPN hate Georgetown? That seems a little harsh, and pretty unlikely. Does ESPN care about Georgetown? I don't think they did before this season, and the last 2 years gave them good reason I suppose. Did ESPN underrate Georgetown? Yup, but so did everyone else. It was a mistake and the best we can hope for is it does not happen again.

In the meantime, I think we can stop looking at every utterance by their talking heads as some sort of augury of an official Bristol position on the Hoyas. Katz is fair and gave GU press when Ronny T was the assistant- he lost his source when Ronny left for Arkansas and the team had its worst year in 30 seasons, so Katz was either dismissive or critical of GU for one year- who cares? Bilas is also fair and is willing to be critical of Duke, although he probably sees everything through the lense of the ACC and thus will annoy people around here who cannot understand that point of view, or who are envious of it. Digger, Jarvis, Raftery have all been supportive of Georgetown over the years and will continue to be more and more supportive as we play better- if you like hearing good things about your team on tv then be happy that ESPN is still very much East-coast biased when it comes to college basketball coverage. Lunardi is the basketball equivalent of Rob Neyer, although less interesting, and his projections have never had a bias to them even if his snaky sidebars do. Vitale is a moron and you are worse for listening to him, the less said on him the better.

So ESPN messed up on this game and on how they picked their games for the entire season, and it is worth bitching about it now so that it does not happen next year. Something tells me they are smart enough to know they messed up without ever admitting it, and I hope they realize it enough now so that at the very least some of the remaining non-televised games get picked up by Full Court.

[SFHoya99]

Mike Patrick just said, "He's become a force offensively."

About Lee Melchionni. Averaging 6+ ppg.

I'm not commenting because it is Duke, but I'm just generally annoyed with the level of hyperbole used in commentating -- why can't we be watching something less than the best?

[GUHoya07]

How many times has Duke been televised now this season? It seems like every game is on either ESPN or ESPN2. Maybe thats because just about every game is. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[GUHoya07]

AHHHHH!!!!! Such typical ESPN!! They show Duke fans at a home game for Miami! SCREW YOU ESPN!!!

[GUHoya07]

SHUT UP MIKE PATRICK!!! I'VE ALREADY HAD TO HEAR MULTIPLE TIMES THAT COACH K IS THE MOST ETHICAL CREATION IN ALL OF HISTORY AND THAT HE IS A GOD!!!!! SHUUUUUUUUUUUT UP!!!!!!!

[FLHoya]

Before I came to Georgetown, my team of choice was the Miami Hurricanes. I had followed them since I started watching basketball as a wee youngster. So by the time I was in High School, I got to see them grow from a winless Big East conference season to by 1999 actually cracking the Top 10 at one point and earning a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The one thing that always amazed me was how clueless ESPN remained to what was going on in Coral Gables even as the Canes became a fixture in the Top 25 for about a season and a half. My favorite was Dick Vitale, who did a lot of studio work and halftime type shows back then. EVERY time a Miami highlight would come up, Dick would say the EXACT same blurb about the team: "Wow, baby, Leonard Hamilton is really doing a good job with that team down in Miami...they really need some more fan support at their arena, come on Miami fans." He said this same blurb so often I had it memorized, it seriously happened almost a double digit number of times.

TRANSLATION: I [Dicky V] cannot for the life of me name a single player on the University of Miami's men's basketball team. Can we talk some more about how special Duke's 9th man is?

That's what always troubled me the most about the homer announcers ESPN has--and they're not ALL this way, but certain ones we've all discussed before are. It's not so much the blatant homerism and hyping of one's player/team/coach/conference of choice. It's the LACK of attention paid to other deserving teams, like the nice stories from small conferences, or the teams from the Big Six conferences that make surprising runs in a given year--like the late 90s Hurricanes. You come to find out when Dukie V or the Maryland Connection (Patrick/Elmore, who did tonight's ACC Wednesday) step out of their little bubble...they can't tell you anything about "other" teams. So they repeat the same hackneyed surface quote, or they just read stats from the media guide, trying not to catch themselves by accidentally reading "dot dot dot" when the ellipses come.

It really bothered me as a Miami fan then, although I accepted the sexiness of being a Top 20 team and still being "under the radar" to ESPN.

So five years of Hoya Paranoia later, I'm obvious not a hardcore Miami basketball fan anymore--you can "appreciate" and "check up" on a team like that, but not "root" for them anymore as I see it, given the common conference. And what do we have here, a little ACC Wednesday action with Miami vs. Duke. This was my dream matchup...back in 1999 when I was in High School. Miami was #2 to Duke's #1 in their bracket in the NCAA's and I was dreaming...but it didn't happen, Miami was upset in Round 2. So they got me hooked.

And ESPN is hyping this thing endlessly, and half of me is thinking, "wow, nice to see ESPN finally giving Miami some credit after all these years." But the other darker half is saying: "it's because of the ACC, isn't it?"

What really got me tonight was Mike Patrick repeatedly saying that this was probably the biggest home game in Miami history. Umm, as a longtime Canes fan Mike, I'm gonna respectfully disagree there:

Jan. 20, 1999, Miami is two days removed from receiving a #25 ranking in the AP Poll, marking the first time they've been ranked since...1960!!! 39 years!! And what should their next game be? Why, a home game at the Miami Arena vs. #1 UConn, who won the National Title that season. The Canes sold out the Miami Arena for the first time EVER, and Dickie V and John Saunders did the game--there's a picture in the Miami basketball record book on their website of the two announcers at that game. Miami took UConn to OT, lost 70-68 as their wide open last second three off an inbounds pass clanged off. One of the best college games I ever watched.

First ranking in 39 years, playing the #1 team, sold out 20,000 seat arena, a Miami team that was clearly headed for great things. Yet tonight's game was more important because it had...Duke I guess.

See, ESPN was guilty of both OVERHYPING Miami and falling prey to their sin of ignorance tonight. They overhyped the matchup by pumping Miami up to be waaaaay better than they were. Miami has no solid OOC win (Florida doesn't count), and has a 3-1 ACC record thanks to wins over...FSU, UVA, and NC State. They also live and die by 1-on-1 basketball and are essentially a 2-man playground team. Took Mike and Len 35 minutes to find that out, after spouting nonsense and canned quotes like "Frank Haith really has something going here...". God that brought me back. They clearly had only heard of one guy on Miami (Diaz) and only knew of Robert Hite from a stat sheet (he was the ACC's second leading scorer). Pumped them up to suit the matchup, gushed about Duke all night, didn't do any substantive analysis on Miami, showed celebs and Duke fans all night. Basically, ESPN pimped Miami out for the pleasure of Duke fans tonight.

So on the plus side, I got to see my old team in its dream matchup tonight. But sadly, not as much has changed with the way ESPN treats them, even in a new conference.

How's that for a soapbox moment?

[GUHoya07]

Nice work FL, those Duke fans being shown really Editeded me off. I think they crossed the line there. Its in Miami and they should be showing Miami fans, not some jackass Duke fans begging to get on TV in Miami's arena.