The NCAA is trying to get the country excited about two additional days of basketball for its men’s basketball tournament. It even trademarked the FIRST FOUR® in an attempt to give the opening round play-in games some extra juice. But if the games are dull as in the case with the inaugural quartet of games in the expanded 68 team field, then you could call them Mercedes-Benz® and no branding would work. The outcomes of the games were out of CBS/Turner’s control, but the elements the two networks could control, the pre and postgames shows, halftime segments and in between games showed some very good potential.
On Tuesday, hosts Greg Gumbel and Ernie Johnson, Jr. along with analysts Greg Anthony, Charles Barkley, Seth Davis and Kenny Smith were stationed in the Turner Sports studios in Atlanta. This gave viewers a supersized studio, but it actually worked. With EJ, Greg and Seth handling one halftime segment and Greg, Chuck and Kenny the other, the show flowed quite nicely. Ernie Johnson is an Emmy Award®-winning studio host and is very comfortable in the role. He did a good job working off the CBS analysts. For his segments, Greg engaged Barkley well and perhaps the change of venues helped as Barkley was more animated on Tuesday than during his stints on CBS in New York two days earlier. While Greg and Charles did step on each other a few times on Tuesday, as the night wore on, the more comfortable they got with each other. I look forward to Greg and Charles during the studio segments in New York over the next four days.
As for the new reworked open with computer animation and a reorchestrated theme, I liked what I saw and heard. Great moments were interspersed with classic calls from Al McGuire, Jim Nantz and Verne Lundquist. And nice to have Gus Johnson’s “This is March Madness!” punctuate the open. One noticeable omission was Billy Packer whose voice has been on CBS’ open for quite some time, even through last year. Perhaps his criticism of CBS/Turner earlier this year led to his voice being jettisoned from the open.
Turner also had its patented postgame show coverage, christening the NCAA Tournament with “Inside March Madness.” The premiere edition had the aforementioned cast of characters complete with the Photoshopped pictures that have come to be a regular part of Turner Sports’ coverage. Perhaps Kenny Smith’s “Gone Fishin'” could enter when teams are eliminated from the NCAA Tournament.
As for Wednesday’s studio coverage, Matt Winer is a very competent host and worked well with CBS/Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis, NBA TV’s Steve Smith and Indiana coach Tom Crean. This cast will host Inside March Madness for the first weekend of action and it acquitted itself rather well on Wednesday.
The only thing that could improve is the quality of games and I suspect that it will on Thursday as we get into the meat of the schedule. Let the Madness begin.
