More frustrating than an Ohio State double overtime loss? CBS coverage of an Ohio State double overtime loss

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I would love to give you a recap of the Buckeyes opening round loss to Sienna. There’s plenty to talk about in a game lost in double overtime in the last seconds to a three point shot. Unfortunately, I can’t.

You see, I live in Maryland so for me, the Ohio State game was little more than a changing score at the top of the screen. Now don’t get me wrong, the first eight minutes or so looked good. From there on out, I got to see Cleveland State put a beating on Wake Forest. Not that I didn’t enjoy watching Wake go down to an Ohio team. Well, I enjoyed it until CBS finally switched back to the Ohio State game with three or so minutes left to go. Naturally, if I actually wanted to see the end of the Cleveland State game as it was a great upset, I wouldn’t have had the option because of course, they had switched back to the Ohio State game (thankfully).

But that is only the half of it. While I’ll always root for the Big Ten teams come March, Wisconsin, who was playing at the same time as the Buckeyes, decided that they would finally wake up and play a little basketball. Next thing I know, as the Buckeyes struggle with a school I honestly couldn’t find on a map, I’m watching the end of the Wisconsin game.

Wait, weren’t we wearing our white uniforms? Did they switch to scarlett after that last basket? What’s going on here?

And on it went – back and forth through two Ohio State overtimes and one Wisconsin overtime. It was as if my three year old had taken control of the remote and was having great fun watching daddy get more and more upset.

Maybe it’s the fault of CBS, maybe it’s the fault of my cable provider, Verizon Fios. Whatever the case, there is only one broadcast of the tourney and instead of experiencing the joy of madly banging on my remote in an attempt to watch the final moments of three games, I’m at the whim of some producer in a trailer in New York or something. For all I know, he could be a Michigan fan (gasp) and there’s not a thing I can do about it.

I’ve got 1500 channels. You would think CBS/Verizon/whoever could find a couple extra, just for one weekend, so I can root for whatever team I want?! I know for a fact that the “Kitten’s Playing With Yarn channel (channel 1232 – “All Kittens, All Cute”) had gone to infomercials somewhere around 8:30. You mean to tell me that CBS and the NCAA couldn’t outbid a 60 minute spot for the Catnip 3000 (I only bought two).

Sure, maybe I could have watched the game on some bootlegged stream out of Botswana or something. But face it, I didn’t buy my gazillion inch, mega-high def wide-screen t.v. with ultra-decibel surround so I could watch the game on a laptop.

So here’s the deal, I’m calling on all Ohio State, Siena, Wisconsin, Florida State, Tennessee, Oklahoma State, Marquette and Utah fans (did I miss anyone) to let the NCAA know loud and clear that we’re angry and we’re not going to take it anymore. We’ve all been through it and we all have experienced the pain and frustration of a watching a tied game vanish with only 9 seconds to go — only to return to a commentator saying, “That was a shot for the history books!”

Insist that the NCAA require that the network broadcasting opening weekend of the tournament puts out at least three different broadcast available regardless of geographic location. Contact you’re provider and let them now that you’re angry. Heck, I’ll even let them stick to just one broadcast on basic cable if they want. But if you pay for anything more then a government issued digital converter then you are entitled to at least three feeds.

Don’t think it can be done. We’ve got the Big Ten Network in Maryland now (…Yes Mr. Lodico…we’ll take that into consideration…as I told you an hour ago, we are looking into it.). There’s power in numbers people. I’ve go my virtual pitchfork ready to go. Who’s with me.