Tweet
Good stuff from Jerry Palm this morning -
One of the more entertaining/frustrating parts of selection Sunday for me is the interview of the committee chair on CBS with Jim Nantz and Billy Packer. Invariably, Packer ends up going off on some rant about the selections or seedings using completely irrelevant information as the source of his opinion.
This year's was one of the worst, and that's saying something. With so many highly questionable selections and seedings this year, there were a lot of questions that needed to be asked, and as usual, neither Packer nor Nantz had a clue as to what they were.
Instead, they (Packer mostly) rambled on about nonsense like 5-year trends in NCAA tournament performance by conference as a basis for why more power conference teams should be selected and complaining that the committee must think the MVC is as good as the ACC because they have just as many teams, and so yawn.
There's no excuse for this. These guys get a chance for an exclusive interview with the chair every year. They should know what goes into the selections and what doesn't and stick to the relevant facts, but it's obvious that in doing these interviews that they don't listen. They certainly weren't listening to Littlepage. After he did say something, they went right back to their rambling rant as if he hadn't spoken at all. Listening to the interview, I felt offended for Littlepage, even if he didn't feel that way, because it was so obvious that they were ignoring him.
This particular interview was so bad, even by Nantz and Packer's standard, that Littlepage was asked about it during the press conference yesterday.
Littlepage did seem concerned that their rights-holder (CBS) has people interviewing him that don't seem to understand their process. He singled out Packer saying, "I think Billy made a comment about the Missouri Valley, that he hadn't seen them play, but yet he felt comfortable enough to talk about what he perceived to be a lower level of performance, not only this year, but over time. It just seems to be counterintuitive if you will, that he would make such a comment like that."
When asked again about not only Packer's, but also other TV analysts' apparent lack of knowledge about the selection process and criteria, Littlepage said, "He (Packer) may have an opinion, or the two of them (Packer and Nantz) may have an opinion about that. They're certainly free to have those opinions and express those opinions. But to just look at this in terms of the partnership (NCAA-CBS), you would hope that there would be a little bit better understanding of what it is that we do, an accurate reflection of the facts, as they know them to be facts instead of opinions, would be helpful."
CBS would be better served to let the studio guys (Greg Gumbel, Craig Kellogg and Seth Davis) question the chair because you can tell that those guys have a much better handle on the process and make an effort to understand it. Leave Packer and Nantz to do what they do best - call the games.
One of the more entertaining/frustrating parts of selection Sunday for me is the interview of the committee chair on CBS with Jim Nantz and Billy Packer. Invariably, Packer ends up going off on some rant about the selections or seedings using completely irrelevant information as the source of his opinion.
This year's was one of the worst, and that's saying something. With so many highly questionable selections and seedings this year, there were a lot of questions that needed to be asked, and as usual, neither Packer nor Nantz had a clue as to what they were.
Instead, they (Packer mostly) rambled on about nonsense like 5-year trends in NCAA tournament performance by conference as a basis for why more power conference teams should be selected and complaining that the committee must think the MVC is as good as the ACC because they have just as many teams, and so yawn.
There's no excuse for this. These guys get a chance for an exclusive interview with the chair every year. They should know what goes into the selections and what doesn't and stick to the relevant facts, but it's obvious that in doing these interviews that they don't listen. They certainly weren't listening to Littlepage. After he did say something, they went right back to their rambling rant as if he hadn't spoken at all. Listening to the interview, I felt offended for Littlepage, even if he didn't feel that way, because it was so obvious that they were ignoring him.
This particular interview was so bad, even by Nantz and Packer's standard, that Littlepage was asked about it during the press conference yesterday.
Littlepage did seem concerned that their rights-holder (CBS) has people interviewing him that don't seem to understand their process. He singled out Packer saying, "I think Billy made a comment about the Missouri Valley, that he hadn't seen them play, but yet he felt comfortable enough to talk about what he perceived to be a lower level of performance, not only this year, but over time. It just seems to be counterintuitive if you will, that he would make such a comment like that."
When asked again about not only Packer's, but also other TV analysts' apparent lack of knowledge about the selection process and criteria, Littlepage said, "He (Packer) may have an opinion, or the two of them (Packer and Nantz) may have an opinion about that. They're certainly free to have those opinions and express those opinions. But to just look at this in terms of the partnership (NCAA-CBS), you would hope that there would be a little bit better understanding of what it is that we do, an accurate reflection of the facts, as they know them to be facts instead of opinions, would be helpful."
CBS would be better served to let the studio guys (Greg Gumbel, Craig Kellogg and Seth Davis) question the chair because you can tell that those guys have a much better handle on the process and make an effort to understand it. Leave Packer and Nantz to do what they do best - call the games.
Comment