Archive for March, 2009

Yes, friends and neighbors the NCAA Tournament is upon us.  Thus, we all get ready for the mayhem that accompanies that grand old tradition.  For what seems like forever, that has included watching endless hours of basketball courtesy of CBS Sports.  Now, generally, I am a huge fan of CBS Sports, and I favor their web presence when it comes to sports content on the internet. **

All that said, last year’s NCAA tournament almost drove me mad.  Actually it wasn’t the tournament, but the way that CBS covered the tournament on television.  That led me to fire off at the mouth a bit.  Since it is that time again, I figured it would only be appropriate to take a stroll down memory lane and look back on what I had to say about CBS’s coverage.  I do this for two reasons.

First, this seems relevant as we all get ready to become couch potatoes for a month.  This may be minimized a little bit due to the fact that CBS will be broadcasting all games online free of charge once again, but the fact remains a big flat screen is infinitely better than even the best computer monitor.

Second, I have been so busy that I haven’t yet gotten a chance to finish up my thoughts on the Oklahoma State Cowboys…

Thus, without further adieu, we go back in time to my post entitled simply:

CBS = Complete Bull Sh*t

The following is an excerpt from an archived post on Gate 21 which originally appeared on 31 March 2008.  To continue reading the original post in its entirety, simply click the title above, or the “Continue Reading” link at the foot of this post

I intentionally waited a few days before airing this complaint, mainly because I didn’t want my vitriol to be mistaken as nothing more than “sour grapes” over the BasketVols loss to the Louisville Cardinals.

Trust me, this has nothing to do with Tennessee, Louisville, or any other specific team…

For the past … well, it seems like quite a long time, now … CBS has been the exclusive home of the NCAA Tournament. I vaguely remember ESPN covering first and second-round games during the 1990s, but CBS is all we have had for a while. Either way, CBS has held a stranglehold on the Final Four since Billy Packer conned James Naismith himself into signing over the rights some time during the 1920s — back when Billy Packer was in his 50s.

First of all, I do want to applaud CBS Sportsline — CBS Sports’ internet division — for their ambitious decision to broadcast every tournament game for free on the web. Similarly, the CBS “Game Center” on the internet for each game — displaying myriad stats and information in real time — is amazing. It is as artful as it is impressive. Any fan can get up-to-the-second information on every facet of the game — including points, fouls, assists, shooting trends, whether a player is taking bribes to throw the game, which boosters the cute little cheerleader next to the basket is sleeping with, and so much more — via one of the best interfaces I’ve ever seen for statistical information of that kind.

Despite the minor fact that the bandwidth draw for the “March Madness on Demand” service has been so obscenely high that it has — at times — nearly crashed massive trunk lines on the web, I salute these efforts of CBS’s internet division. For reasons which will become clear in a second, in the future I may choose this as the only way I’ll watch the tournament — even if it is in a 5″ x 5″ low resolution streaming window.

Continue Reading >>

**Disclosure: While lawvol is a voting member of the CBS Sports Football Blog Poll and the CBS Sports BasketBlog Poll, neither this site, its editor, nor publisher receives any payment or other compensation of any type or kind in return for participation. Furthermore, neither Gate 21 nor lawvol received any benefit of any kind for this article, which was neither requested nor solicited by CBS Sports. This article represents the actual opinion of the author (for what that is worth) and was in no way influenced by any other person(s).

For those of you who are not in Knoxville, you may not realize that, at present, Neyland Stadium is undergoing major renovations as part of the Neyland Stadium Master Plan.  Currently, crews are hard at work on the construction of the West Stadium Club, new Skybox, and renovations to the West upper concourse.  All of this is to be done prior to the 2009 kickoff.  After that, Neyland will undergo additional renovations as the Tennessee Terrace gets set to debut along with a completely renovated Gate 21 plaza (I know, I’m so freakin’ excited I can hardly stand it).  As the Master Planning documents make abundantly clear, once all of the renovations are complete, Neyland Stadium will truly be a showplace as both a venue and as an icon on the landscape of college sports.

For now, however, it looks a bit rough…

Actually, it sort of looks like someone set off a bomb somewhere near the intersection of Phillip Fulmer Way and Peyton Manning Pass … a big one.

Anyway, my fellow Gate-ian (if Shakespeare can make up words I can too) “Home Sweet Home” decided to go out and document the state of the stadium for everyone — with his camera.  Thus, below are a few shots to show you exactly how the Home of the Vols looks at present, giving you a chance to see the View From the Hill … err … the view from the Speech Pathology Building.

Click Images to Bigify

All photos by Home Sweet Home / Gate 21

As you can see, Neyland has looked better, but take heart, there are great things on the horizon.

The New Entrance to Neyland Stadium

In the meantime, I wouldn’t be scheduling any stadium tours…

– So it goes

Master Plan Image Courtesy of: UT Athletic Department / MHM || Statement on Fair Use

2009 SEC Tournament Championship Game

Final Statistics: Mississippi State 64 • Tennessee 61

Postgame: Quotes • Box Score

Try as they might during the 2009 SEC Tournament Championship game, the Tennessee Volunteers simply could not overcome the Mississippi State Bulldogs … or the officials.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the BasketVols loss on the officiating, because it was awful in both directions, but the calls in the second half were as poor as I have seen in a major tournament championship in a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Ted “Rah-spect mah Au-thori-tah!!” Valentine was nowhere to be found.

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of ESPN:

Miss. State Upends the Vols| ESPN.com

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Brian Butler’s Potential Players.com, high school standout Bryce Brown has just signed with Tennessee.

• HT to: MoonDog for looking all across the web for 30 minutes while I accidentally heard about it on the radio.

More to come…

» Updated: 17 March 2009 — 11:00 am

Here’s an update and some thoughts on Bryce Brown’s commitment courtesy of the Blazer Chronicles:

Video: The Blazer Chronicles — This Could be the Year

Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports College BasketBlog Poll hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

Week 6

Through 15 March 2009

Well, March Madness is upon us. This weekend provided a bevy of basketball from the various conference tournaments, including some key upsets.  Bearing all of that in mind, here’s my BasketBlog Poll ballot for this week, as we prepare for the Big Dance to come.  Most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here it is:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Louisville	3
2	Memphis	1
3	Pittsburgh	2
4	North Carolina	2
5	Connecticut	–
6	Michigan St.	1
7	Oklahoma	1
8	Villanova	1
9	Duke	3
10	Wake Forest	2
11	Missouri	3
12	Gonzaga	1
13	Washington	3
14	Arizona St.	1
15	UCLA	4
16	Syracuse	3
17	Purdue	6
18	Florida St.	3
19	Kansas	7
20	Louisiana St.	4
21	Utah	5
22	Illinois	5
23	West Virginia	4
24	Utah St.	2
25	Clemson	7

• Last week’s ballot

Dropped Out: Marquette (#20), Brigham Young (#22), New Mexico (#24), Xavier (#25)

I hope to post a few parting thoughts on the SEC Tournament later today along with my Ballot Predictions for the NCAA Tournament (as if you cared). One way or the other, it is now time to see who really deserves adulation and who was overrated.

Having taken the time to consider my feeble attempt at ranking the powers in college basketball, feel free to try and convince me that I am wrong — which is part of the way the BlogPoll is supposed to work.  I promise that I will consider all comments.

As for the rest of the BlogPoll, well, you can check out how other bloggers voted, how your team fared across the blogosphere, and view the weekly results each week over at CBS Sports (at least I think that’s how it’s supposed to work…)

More to come on the Big Dance, and the fortunes of the Tennessee Volunteers…

– So it goes…

I only have a few minute, but I wanted to take a moment to cheer on the Vols today as they get ready to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs today in the SEC Tournament Championship Game.  I do not know why or how, but suddenly the Vols look like the team we all thought they would be at the start of the season.

Better late than never…

It's time to finish strong, men!

The game will air today on CBS as well as online at CBS Sports at 1:00 pm. As always, the game will also be broadcast by the Vol Network through its broadcast affiliate stations, as well as via the live internet stream available through UT Sports.com, and via XM Satellite Radio on Channel 199.

Barring incident and time permitting, I will be joining in the Live Game Thread over at Rocky Top Talk, where everyone is always welcome to join in and either celebrate or commiserate throughout the game.

Go Vols, Beat the Bulldogs!

– So it goes

In light of all the controversy surrounding whether Lane Kiffin told Alshon Jeffrey that he would “end up pumping gas for the rest of his life” if he chose to play for the South Carolina Gamecocks—which Kiffin adamantly denied in a follow-up interview with ESPN’s Chris Low—Coach Kiffin will appear on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption tonight (13 March 2009) at 5:30.  I am sure that Kiffin will have … interesting … comments to share with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.

I am sure that the Public Relations department at Tennessee is already hard at work on this one…

• HT to: Basilio