ESPN's Ryan Ruocco and Doris Burke navigated calling the action for Nuggets-Mavericks on Wednesday while also "giving viewers breaking news and bouncing back and forth with Scott Van Pelt," as everyone involved with the effort did a "tremendous job offering the right tone and balanced reactions," according to Jimmy Traina of SI.com. This is "what ESPN does best." Ruocco said of the moment he was informed that the NBA would suspend the season due to coronavirus concerns, "It was surreal to have that huge domino fall while we were on the air. I thought our producer, Ian Grucka, just did a great job of keeping us apprised of what was breaking, not immediately reacting to news until it was confirmed and then telling us at the appropriate times and helping steer us through it." Ruocco added, "You just go into a different mode, right? The game is still there and you're gonna go in and out of calling action, but it's all of a sudden a different context than normal" (SI.com, 3/12). In N.Y., Andrew Marchand writes ESPN "did a fine job on Wednesday night when news of coronavirus postponing the NBA season broke." During the broadcast, Ruocco, Burke and reporter Tom Rinaldi "struck the right tone," while on the "SportsCenter" desk, Van Pelt "handled the news well with assists from insider Adrian Wojnarowski and reporter Royce Young" (N.Y POST, 3/13).
ALL IN A DAY'S WORK? FS1's Tim Brando on the Big East Tournament cancellation at halftime said, "I'll always have that canned response to 'What's the most bizarre thing you covered?'" SI.com's Ross Dellenger noted Brando's answer is the quarterfinal game between St. John's and Creighton that "somehow will go down as the last played -- not completed -- men's basketball game of this season." Brando said, "Today was surreal. I felt uncomfortable about what was going on, but we had a product to put on the air. That's what we do" (SI.com, 3/12).
