I'm surprised no one has mentioned the great revelation of the first two rounds: free, live streaming video of the games! How wonderful was it be freed from CBS's determination of which game we should watch? I completely agree with everyone about the greatness of CBS's conservative coverage, EXCEPT when it comes to switching among the games when it gets down to crunch time.

During Friday's late games, I once again had the image of CBS managing this critical task by giving a senile grandpa a remote control. I was watching the games at a bar, and can’t recall which games it was. But several times we threw peanuts at the plasma screen when they interrupted an play in a fairly close game with 3 or 5 minutes to go, and jumped to time-out huddles where the whole country knew the trailing team was going to foul as soon as the ball was inbounded.

I can just hear grandpa saying "well, hold on now, we don't want miss the inbound. Now where is that confounded quick-view button . . . ."

Ok; so the 10-second line becomes an endline. The defense knocks the ball away and it crosses this endline. Who gets possession? The other team, of course, just like it would for the other three out-of-bounds lines.

I completely agree with you that CBS's coverage is a beautiful thing. But you've left out the best part about it, and maybe missed the point altogether when you declared it to be so juicily throwback. The great thing they do, the thing that is actually completely innovative is: cut to another game when the current one gets boring. Huzzah!

Regarding the oft-made observation that a conference team's win in the tourney validates the conference. You disagreed. I'm with you on that. So is Clark Kellogg, who made the point repeatedly in the studio.

As to your happiness with CBS, two caveats. First, with no sister-nets to spin to, we are stuck with what the local affiliate gives us and what the network decides it cuts into. I miss the days when ESPN would telecast every single game. Admittedly, some were on tape delay in the middle of the night, but if you really wanted to see a game, or every game, you could. Second, once a game was in the can, CBS darn near forgot it ever existed. There was lots of "upcoming games" listed in the crawl at the bottom, and all the current games were updated at the top, but it was hard to get results of already-played games if you came in late.

Otherwise, your point about the coverage of the game at hand is right on.

Tim Howe

Wauconda, IL

while King (and many posters) are right that players shouldn't be able to call timeouts while falling out of bounds or scrambling on the floor - I like the idea that timeouts can only be called when the ball is dead (so sue me for being a bitter Michigan fan in 1993). as far as the mid-majors, Vitale made a point that is not getting enough recognition. he said that if the selection committee is making a value judgment that it is "opening up" the tournament for reasons of promoting athletic "diversity" (among conferences, geography/small schools) - then it should just be honest and say so. he and others like Packer are angered when the Committee pretends that they are picking the 34 "best" teams, which is not realistic. it's like college admissions - a selective private school could concievably say - we're admitting only valedictorians with a 1400 SAT and 3.7 GPA - believe me, the average selective college gets enough applications that it could adhere to such a standard. However, the college makes value judgments that it wants a "diverse" student body with athletes, musicians, artists, student journalists, keg party specialists and so forth. the point with both college admission officers and the NCAA Selection Committee is that they should be honest about the value judgments their making. and honestly, what's more intriguing - Bradley and George Mason or watching the teams that finished 6th and 7th in the ACC or Big 12?

King,

In your article, you propose a rule change: 12: "[Y]ou know how when the defense knocks the ball away and it goes into the backcourt it's not a backcourt violation, as long as the defense touched it last?

That should be a backcourt violation.

Why should the offense be rewarded for having had the ball knocked away? It seems to me the rule should be that once you've crossed the 10-second line, the 10-second line becomes an endline. Ball crosses it again without possession changing and it's a turnover."

If we treated the 10-second line truly as if it were an endline, then a ball batted beyond it would be considered out of bounds and possession would go to the team that did not touch it last. The net result in your example is that the offense would still have the ball. The current rule keeps the game moving rather than stopping play to in-bound the ball.

I do, however, completely agree with you about timeouts. We should reward strong play whenever we can.

Sitting Pops had nothing to do with foul trouble. This was only his second game back after knee surgery and wasn't able to contribute the way that he or Coach Hobbs wanted to. Pops at 70% or less is no match for Sheldon Williams. And the way that Williams was playing, there's a good chance that Pops could have re-injured the knee.

While I agree that the refs are way too lenient in granting timeouts to out of control diving, flying, spelunking, gliding, and whatever else players on their way out of bounds are doing, I think that your proposed rule changes for timeouts go too far. You often, and rightfully so, question clock management and time out management in other sports,notably football, so why now advocate penalizing a coach and team for using timeouts well, ie, having a few left to save a possession when a player is trapped near the end of a tight ballgame? It's a not a free pass, it does cost a timeout, so the defense is rewarded to an extent. So, while I like your idea of a player having to be in control of the ball with one foot on the floor to call a T/O, let's leave it at that.