A Different Take On March Madness
Your favorite player on your favorite team blows by his defender, slashes through the lane and dunks on a 7'0 center. They're only down by two possessions. They're coming back and they just grabbed the momentum...
Then a time out is taken by the opposing team.
Three minutes later, despite the interruption, your club steals an in-bounds pass, goes coast-to-coast and drills a three, cutting the deficit to a mere three points. They're really rolling now...
It's time for the "under seven-minutes break."
Suddenly, not only is the momentum completely sucked out of the players, coaches and fans for your team, but you're seriously considering popping in a movie to watch during all the time outs. What's the deal with all these time outs anyway?
Couple what feels like an unlimited amount of time outs given to each team with "TV time outs" several times each half and what you have is a painstaking test of patience. If there were anything else even remotely interesting on any other channel, CBS wouldn't be able to get away with it. As it is, there is nothing we can do but refill our snack tray and sit through each and every stoppage of play.
The problem here isn't television time outs. I understand that a station can't run an uninterrupted basketball game. This is the biggest money-maker CBS has and I expect them to milk it for all it's worth. The real issue is the allotment of time outs given to a team.
In basketball, a time out is typically only used for two reasons. First is to stop momentum, as in the example above. Second is to stop the clock late in the game with the hopes that a team can score, call time out, draw up a play, etc. No matter what the cause of the time out is, it's always annoying.
What would happen if each team was only given one time out per half? We would have a game with true momentum swings where the players on the court had to figure things out, not the coaches. We would have fewer frustrating interruptions for the fans. Players would have to be in better shape or substitute more often. Rather than the last minute being a frenzy, the last five minutes would be all-out drama.
In my opinion, we would have a better game.
Then a time out is taken by the opposing team.
Three minutes later, despite the interruption, your club steals an in-bounds pass, goes coast-to-coast and drills a three, cutting the deficit to a mere three points. They're really rolling now...
It's time for the "under seven-minutes break."
Suddenly, not only is the momentum completely sucked out of the players, coaches and fans for your team, but you're seriously considering popping in a movie to watch during all the time outs. What's the deal with all these time outs anyway?
Couple what feels like an unlimited amount of time outs given to each team with "TV time outs" several times each half and what you have is a painstaking test of patience. If there were anything else even remotely interesting on any other channel, CBS wouldn't be able to get away with it. As it is, there is nothing we can do but refill our snack tray and sit through each and every stoppage of play.
The problem here isn't television time outs. I understand that a station can't run an uninterrupted basketball game. This is the biggest money-maker CBS has and I expect them to milk it for all it's worth. The real issue is the allotment of time outs given to a team.
In basketball, a time out is typically only used for two reasons. First is to stop momentum, as in the example above. Second is to stop the clock late in the game with the hopes that a team can score, call time out, draw up a play, etc. No matter what the cause of the time out is, it's always annoying.
What would happen if each team was only given one time out per half? We would have a game with true momentum swings where the players on the court had to figure things out, not the coaches. We would have fewer frustrating interruptions for the fans. Players would have to be in better shape or substitute more often. Rather than the last minute being a frenzy, the last five minutes would be all-out drama.
In my opinion, we would have a better game.
posted by Joe Siple | 3:04 PM
2 Comments:
Thank god someone else noticed the amount of commercials that are being shown this March. I cannot believe how many breaks in these games. I love filling my snack tray up but this is crazy. I know every commercial CBS has in their vault by heart. I can tell you where to invest your money (AIG), take chances with Degree (don't be a Mama's Boy) and how the Spring breakers get eaten by sharks. Let the game have some flow before it stops and I have to get more chips. Really I can go without.
Well put. You know it's bad when you don't even want to refill the snack tray anymore.
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