SI View The Week in TV Sports

Highlights

Saturday 3/17

Red Wings at Avalanche
ABC 3 PM The Avalanche is burying its NHL brethren with the best
defense team assembled since the O.J. Simpson trial.
League-leading Colorado (101 points through Sunday) recently
traded for defenseman Rob Blake, who has one Norris Trophy, or
four fewer than blue line mate Ray Bourque. Goalie Patrick Roy
has three Vezina Trophies and is the league's alltime wins
leader. Closing argument to Detroit, which had the NHL's
second-best record: "When they drop the puck, you're outta luck!"

Thursday 3/22

NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
CBS THURSDAY AND FRIDAY 7:30 PM What if Survivor creator Mark
Burnett had been a member of this year's tournament selection
committee? "Providence is out," he might have said. "Viewers will
confuse the school with the NBC show. And I can't name a single
starter on Wisconsin, so we'll give Gervase to the Badgers."
Harsh reality programming--call it Survive and Advance--continues
tonight with regional semifinals from Philadelphia and Anaheim,
followed by games from Atlanta and San Antonio tomorrow night.

Friday 3/23

SportsCentury: Pete Maravich
ESPN CLASSIC 8 PM "It was as if you'd melted down all 12 Harlem
Globetrotters," says writer Ralph Wiley of Maravich, "and filled
up this skinny six-six white frame with everything they had."
This fascinating one-hour documentary is replete with clips of
Maravich's ball handling and scoring wizardry. It also examines
how, until he found religion late in life, Pistol Pete, who died
in 1988 at 40 of a heart attack during a pickup game, was
aimless when he didn't have a ball in his hands.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

Don't Miss

SATURDAY 3/17-SUNDAY 3/18

Bay Hill Invitational
NBC SATURDAY 3 PM; SUNDAY 2:30 PM Napster, R.I.P. edition, or
what's Love got to do with it? Two years ago Davis Love III
(above), who has seven top 10 finishes but no wins (never my
Love) in this event, hit a bunker shot that landed 30 feet
beyond the 17th hole at Bay Hill. Frustrated, he became a crazy
little thing called Love, clubbing a nearby sprinkler head with
a sand wedge (Love hurts). At last year's Bay Hill, Tiger Woods
said, "Bye, bye, Love" while beating him by four strokes. This
year's tournament, however, has the look of Love, because the
2001 Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner is second on the PGA Tour in
earnings. "I don't care too much for money," he might reply.
"Money can't buy me love."

COLOR PHOTO: JIM GUND

THE ZAPPER

While doing play-by-play of the Big East women's tournament final
pitting Connecticut and Notre Dame, ESPN's Robin Roberts, who
starred as a forward at Southeastern Louisiana in the 1980s, was
stunned into silence for a full minute after watching Huskies
senior guard-forward Shea Ralph tear her ACL. "I forgot we were
still on the air," says Roberts. "Doris [analyst Doris Burke] had
to nudge me and say, 'You haven't spoken for a while. Are you
O.K.?'" Can you imagine that ever happening to Dick Vitale?