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By SHARON GINN
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 3, 2001
After 20 years of Final Four coverage, CBS has the drill down pat, right down to the gauzy, predictable post-championship game recap, One Shining Moment. When genial Jim Nantz and outspoken Billy Packer team as they have for the past 11 years, you know they'll be interesting even when the game isn't.
The network tweaked the formula a bit for this year's NCAA Tournament, borrowing analyst Bill Walton from NBC and adding some fancy camera work. It turns out Walton was the only change worth keeping.
EyeVision, CBS's innovative digital replay system, proved more gimmicky than useful for basketball. A far cry from its debut in the Super Bowl, when viewers and officials were served by video game-like replays that rotated 250 degrees, EyeVision was so ineffective during Saturday's semifinals that the network didn't use it Monday, though it directed viewers to watch replays on cbs.sportsline.com.
CBS must have figured nobody wants to watch fuzzy pictures of basketball plays developing. It might have learned that earlier if it had tested EyeVision (which is expensive and time consuming to set up) for basketball instead of winging it. In its present form it seems best suited for football, but could still be fun if, say, NBC leased it to use during the NBA's slam-dunk contest.
Walton, meanwhile, can be forgiven for picking Arizona, his son Luke's team, to win Monday. He can even be forgiven for appearing to favor the Wildcats while calling their Midwest Region victory over Illinois.
While he has been known to sport a sharp tongue to match his sharp basketball mind, Walton was just plain fun to listen to during March Madness. Hearing him critique his son's play while dryly referring him as "Walton" wasn't great drama, but it was a hoot. And has anyone ever seen the senior Walton smile so much?
Arizona might not return to prominence next season, but Walton proved he is a worthy (though contrasting) replacement for the late Al McGuire. Now, NBC just has to agree to let him come back.
BEST EXCHANGE: Packer's most memorable description was of the anti-Duke sentiment in the stands, something the viewers couldn't pick up on their own. It seems many non-Duke fans believe the Blue Devils get too many breaks from the officials, and the Metrodome crowd was generally pro-Arizona.
"It's Arizona, it's Duke, and neutral (fans), and (the neutral fans are) going one way," Packer said.
Officials too? Nantz asked.
"I'm not necessarily saying that," Packer said, "but every call is being questioned."
FLUFF AWARD: Dick Enberg's halftime tribute to the seniors of college basketball was not only dull, it left out Duke's Nate James, a reserve who made a key three-point play in the second half.
BEST TIDBIT: Reporter Bonnie Bernstein told viewers before the game that Duke had switched locker rooms since Saturday, opting for the one the Blue Devils used when they won the title at the Metrodome in 1992.
RATINGS: Though overall ratings for the tournament are down slightly, semifinal ratings were up. The average overnight rating for the two games was 10.4 with a 21 share, up 9 percent from last year's 9.5/20. One point equals 1 percent of U.S. homes with televisions; share is the percentage of televisions on that were tuned into the games.
Overall, ratings are down to 6.1/14 from 6.2/14 last year. Still, a telephone poll commissioned by CBS said 32.4 percent of adults 18 and over watched part of the first round.