Freedom of the press - just watch what you say
How about that grilling that CBS commentators Jim Nantz and Billy Packer gave to NCAA tournament selection committee chair Craig Littlepage on live TV on Selection Sunday?
The duo utterly flambeed Littlepage, the athletics director at the University of Virginia, for his insisting that several midmajor schools received at-large bids over big-conference teams like Cincinnati, Florida State, Michigan and Maryland because they played tougher nonconference schedules.
It got so hot, in fact, that Littlepage - apparently no fan of the freedom of the press when it comes to his tournament - fired back in kind on Monday.
"They are certainly free to have those opinions and express those opinions. But to look at this in terms of the partnership, you would hope there would be a little better understanding of what it is that we do," Littlepage said.
It got better - or worse, depending on your perspective.
"I think what we have to have are more conversations about the partnership (between CBS and the NCAA) and how we need to work better together a little bit," Littlepage said.
Had he taken the intense questioning from Nantz and Packer in stride, Littlepage would have been playing the good sport - which is, after all, what the NCAA is supposed to be all about.
Right?
That he chose instead to play the Rovian game of shoot the messenger doesn't reflect at all favorably on the outfit that goes out of its way to refer not to teams but institutions and not to players but student-athletes.
Surely some of these institutions teach their student-athletes to think for themselves and ask the occasional difficult question of someone in authority.
In fact, at Littlepage's own University of Virginia - established by one of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson - this kind of thing happens every day.
Perhaps Littlepage and other powers-that-be in the NCAA can learn a lesson from this.
Taking uber-sportswriter John Feinstein's suggestion to allow a pool reporter to observe the committee in action would be a good place to start.
- Chris Graham