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Friday, March 16, 2001
Minute-by-minute Madness
A couch potato’s view of tourney’s first day
Matt Young
Staff Writer
Personal days are a beautiful thing. Some people use their personal day to get out of working on their birthday. Those with the proper perspective use a personal day to observe a religious holiday. However, the real whizzes use their personal day to observe The Greatest Day of the Year, also known as the first day of the NCAA Tournament.
   The first day of March Madness is more than 12 hours of wall-to-wall hoops, beginning with the first tip-off at 11:20 a.m. and ending with the final buzzer sometime around midnight. Most people went to work Thursday and missed all this . . . suckers.

11:21 a.m. - Whoa, there's a stick figure suited up in a Kentucky jersey. Oh wait, that's just Tayshawn Prince. Hey Tayshawn, it's called food, look into getting your hands on some.

11:27 a.m. - CBS might get a lot of hype for "Survivor," but it just unveiled its latest innovation that blows that sissy show away. In the past, scores from around the tournament were updated with a little crawl at the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes or so. No good; not fast enough. This year, CBS has come up with a tiny non-intrusive box in the upper left-hand corner of the screen that gives scores from other games almost continuously. The brilliant little box just let the world know that Ohio State and Utah State are still tied 0-0 with 19:42 left in the first half.

12:14 p.m. - Back in the CBS studio, analyst Clark Kellogg insists that "Utah State isn't squeezin' the orange" and "needs to pass that pumpkin around quicker." Come on, Clark. We're on to you. Slang is cool, slang is fun, but you can't just make it up and expect people to buy it. Players on the playground shoot the rock or pass the pill, but they never do anything with oranges or pumpkins.

12:41 p.m. - Wisconsin and Georgia State are playing in Boise State's arena. Boise State, home of the football field with blue turf, painted its key an unfortunate mixture of bright orange, blue and white. Frankly, it looks like someone puked near the free-throw line. Anyone watching Wisconsin's offense can probably understand why.

1:35 p.m. - Wisconsin's Mark Vershaw, a 72 percent free-throw shooter, clanks two free throws with three seconds left to give 12th-seeded Georgia State the upset win. CBS didn't air an interview with Vershaw after the game, but he should have blamed the vomit-colored key for his lack of concentration at the line.

2:19 p.m. - With his slick hair and old-school head band, UCLA's Jason Kapono looks like an extra from "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Just an observation.

3:02 p.m. - All four games in progress have the underdog leading. March rules!

3:53 p.m. - Hofstra finally stops hitting every shot it chunks and cries uncle to UCLA, meaning CBS can switch everyone to a much better Maryland-George Mason game.

4:23 p.m. - George Mason loses the game when a Maryland player tips a pass out of bounds, but the official rules the ball went off a George Mason player. After an instant replay clearly shows that it should be George Mason's ball, color commentator James Worthy remarks, "Ooh, that was close, but it was a good call." Obviously, Worthy doesn't wear his goggles when he announces.

4:25 p.m. - As it does every year, CBS takes a two-hour break from the tournament instead of showing us Stanford vs. North Carolina-Greensboro. Wouldn't want anyone to miss a precious episode of "Entertainment Tonight", now would we?

4:35 p.m. - That's why God created sports bars and fast cars. The nearly vacant sports bar's big-screen has Stanford leading 10-4 with more than 13 minutes left in the first half.

5:05 p.m. - Apparently, a reporter's notebook looks a lot like a bookie's notebook. The logic in the bar seems to be: that guy has pen and paper, he must know the point spread on this game. It's Stanford (-)30 by the way.

5:50 p.m. - UNC-Greensboro is getting pounded. Perhaps CBS knew what it was doing when it gave the world Leeza Gibbons instead of UNC-Greensboro point guard Courtney Eldridge.

6:21 p.m. - Buzzer sounds. Stanford 89, North Carolina-Greensboro 60. Stanford wins big, but doesn't cover the spread. A shady character in the corner curses Mike Montgomery for calling off the dogs too early.

6:22 p.m. - This shady character races back to the comforts of his couch to catch the remaining five hours of basketball with the rest of the working stiffs.

Staff writer Matt Young can be reached at 886-3702 or by e-mail at youngm@caller.com

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