SI View The Week in Television

the guide

Thursday 3/14 CBS
--NCAA Tournament
Buzzer-beaters. Cinderellas. And enough references to the Big
Dance to make one long for Saturday Night Fever.

Thursday 3/21 USA 12 PM
--The Players Championship
Charles Barkley's favorite golfer (other than himself) returns
to Sawgrass to defend his title. Last year Tiger Woods (below)
beat Vijay Singh by a stroke to earn $1,080,000.

Thursday 3/21 ABC 8PM
--World Figure Skating Championships
Who needs Survivor when we've got reality television like this?
The world's best figure skaters--minus gold medalists Sarah
Hughes and Jamie Sale and David Pelletier--head to Nagano for
four more days of kissing and crying.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

sizzling & fizzling
Who Was Hot and Who Was Not

[sizzling]

--Following the opening lap of Sunday's MBNA America 500 on Fox,
analyst Darrell Waltrip was prescient--"This is a track he
really runs well [on]"--about Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s prospects in
the race: He finished second to Tony Stewart.

--Following ESPN's presentation of A Season on the Brink, its
Outside the Lines featured a roundtable with members of the
1985-86 Indiana team that was the subject of the film. Host Bob
Ley also interviewed forward Daryl Thomas, target of many Bobby
Knight tirades that season.

--Class move by CBS to allow ESPN to broadcast the Alcorn
State-Siena NCAA tournament play-in game; the new TV contract
giving ESPN the rights to telecast the game doesn't begin until
next season.

[fizzling]

--In an otherwise excellent NCAA selection show, CBS showed a
live shot of forlorn Gonzaga coaches and players reacting to
being seeded sixth in the West but inexplicably failed to return
to Spokane to interview coach Mark Few about the slight.

--In an eerie coincidence seemingly written by The X-Files
creator Chris Carter, CBS and ESPN both showed a graphic listing
Virginia with a 17-1 record--it should have been 17-11--when
highlighting teams on the tournament bubble.

--Though Bobby Knight was interviewed moments before Brink
premiered, ESPN's hoops experts--Jay Bilas, Chris Fowler, Digger
Phelps and Dick Vitale--shockingly failed to ask him about the
film during the network's NCAA selection show.

COLOR PHOTO: SIMON BRUTY