Bernstein: Oversized Selection Show Collapses
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) It was a televised blimp crash late Sunday afternoon on CBS, something inflated and unwieldy buffeted by winds beyond its control, ultimately in shambles on the ground.
This was Peak Selection Show, the point where it now has to go back to something more like it used to be.
First there's the Twitter leak that destroyed the operation's fundamental property -- the private bracket information for which all are tuned in. Once it became clear that what was posted was entirely accurate, fans and the teams themselves knew what they had to know, for better or worse. All of the interviews and blue-sky analysis of a given sub-region became superfluous when most of the country had moved on to examining the whole field.
Even had that not occurred, it's clear that the mash-up of CBS and TNT basketball resources is needlessly forced. Seth Davis has watched more college basketball just this week than Charles Barkley has in two full years, but he still seemed to defer to the larger personality either on his own volition or due to instruction, causing us to hear more from someone less knowledgeable. They yukked it up over a giant touch-screen, as if anybody was entertained by Barkley fumbling with his new toy like grandpa figuring out his new iPad.
Even before I was aware of the leak, I found myself wondering, "What are you doing, and why are you doing it?"
There's nothing wrong with interesting opinions and disagreements, but doing so without having revealed the full slate of teams just comes off as under-informed rather than suspenseful. Show us who's where, and then talk about it.
We have learned that less is more. After a day of some exciting games built up curiosity in a notably unpredictable college basketball season, we were given something bloated and soft that was quickly rendered inert.
Perhaps it's a Sunday timing issue for some of us, too, with the show airing at a juncture more conducive to streamlined functionality than reality-show drama. We are starting to figure out dinner on a school night, making sure the kids' homework is done and seeing if we need a grocery run for the start of the week. It's not 8 p.m., and we're not decompressing on the couch just yet, so give us what we need and let's get on with it.
Which is to say, I wasn't exactly quite in the mood for that Sunday.
I trust that CBS producers will be smart enough to analyze what happened and make the necessary improvements. They should look past the Twitter leak and examine the entire mechanism, perhaps taking advantage of social media instead of working against it. Telling us the NCAA tournament field is a fairly simple endeavor, or at least it should be.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.
