A power outage at Anaheim’s Honda Center "forced a delay to the start" of the Texas Tech-Michigan Sweet 16 game on Thursday, and it also caused the CBS studio crew "to call the game until the issue was resolved," according to Jason Dill of the BRADENTON HERALD. Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley tried to describe the action from the net's N.Y. studio prior to the issued being fixed "following the officials’ under 16-minute timeout in the first half" (BRADENTON.com, 3/28). In DC, Des Blieler noted the issue was "resolved fairly quickly," but CBS "did not initially have its full complement of camera angles." Additionally, some viewers "complained online that they were deprived of seeing Charles Barkley continue to filibuster while the technical difficulties were addressed" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 3/28).
TALENT REVIEW: In Spokane, Vince Grippi wrote viewers of the Gonzaga-Florida State Sweet 16 game on Thursday "were lucky enough to have Kevin Harlan on the call for CBS, with Dan Bonner next to him." Harlan is a "consummate professional," and Bonner's analysis was "spot-on most of the night, even down the stretch." However, the three-man booth that included Reggie Miller "seemed to be one person too many" (SPOKESMAN.com, 3/28)....Loyola-Chicago coach Porter Moser served as a guest studio analyst on Turner/CBS' second-round coverage last weekend, and he said, "They told me they wanted naturalness from a coach's perspective rather than a lot of statistics and stuff so that's what I gave them." He said the "most personal insight I had was when I was commenting over video from the locker room of Johnny Dawkins and Central Florida after that incredible loss to Duke." Moser: "I was saying with deep honesty that the scene and emotion looked just like our locker room last year after the (Final Four) loss to Michigan" (Chicago DAILY HERALD, 3/29).
ALL THINGS EQUAL? In Hartford, Kelli Stacy notes WNBA Storm F Breanna Stewart on Wednesday "tweeted about the lack of coverage for the women’s NCAA Tournament." Stewart, a four-time national champ at UConn, "wasn’t impressed that the NCAA March Madness Twitter account was only tweeting about the men’s tournament, noting that 'March Madness' is gender neutral, but the NCAA has decided to dedicate the account to only the men’s tournament" (HARTFORD COURANT, 3/29).
