I'm definitely a television sports connoisseur as evidenced by my countdown of the best TV sports themes, so I figured I would give my take on the initial effort by truTV.
I'm not thrilled with the revised CBS NCAA theme, but it's okay considering the entire graphics package has been overhauled for the new agreement. I thought the new look was definitely more Turner than CBS, but it was clean and effective enough to make the points it needed to make. Although, I love the new openings splicing past and recent tournament memories.
The pairing of Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr has to work a couple bumps in the first game, Nantz was really shaky throughout the night, but he did get better as the night went on. He didn't seem very into the 16 vs. 16 matchup, although I can't blame him for that.
The game became the best of the night and best displayed what we should be seeing starting Thursday afternoon. The UAB and Clemson tilt made for boring TV, but what can you do when the game is a 20 point laugher midway through the second half.
The halftime shows and studio wrap ups were interesting because I think we saw more vintage Charles Barkley tonight than we did during the Selection Sunday show on CBS. A move I found intriguing was that the networks decided to split the analysts from their normal host, so Kenny and Charles were working with Greg Gumbel and Seth Davis and Gregg Anthony worked with Ernie Johnson.
The Johnson trio worked the best simply because of the insight the NCAA guys were able to provide along with Johnson's continued perfection of the studio host position. That's not to say Gumbel, Barkley and Smith were terrible, but when it came to dissecting highlights, it was clear they weren't familiar with the college game.
Barkley and Smith were at their best when the discussed topics off the cuff and talked about teams being slighted by the media like UAB and how people thought they didn't deserve to be in, I think they should leave the highlights to the NCAA guys and the other stuff to the NBA guys.
The production was smooth and slick and the Inside March Madness postgame show was to the point and effective and had some signature Inside the NBA type humor. Overall, it was a good first night for the tournament presentation wise and I'm actually looking forward to the conclusion of the First four tonight, although the toughest part of the process will be finding truTV again.
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