THANKS FOR NOTHING ESPN

In the interest of full disclosure, you, the reader, should know that I absolutely hate ESPN. So, that being said, you may take the criticism in this article with a grain of salt, although I feel that I have accurately presented the facts as I observed them Friday morning.

And oh yeah...earmuffs.


The best part about good news is sharing it with somebody else. Learning about that promotion you were rewarded with at your job or the 'A' that you earned on an assignment seems to get more satisfying each time we tell a friend about it. It's the reason that most people get married in front of dozens of their friends and family or the reason we celebrate happy occasions with parties instead of celebrating them by ourselves.

When Penn State cut down the nets in Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, I was lucky to have my friends with me to bask in the joy that comes with watching your alma mater accomplish something as distinguished as winning an NIT Championship. Still, when I woke up the next morning, I couldn't wait to hear more about it. I jumped out of the shower just in time to catch the beginning of the 7 a.m. Sportscenter (a show I normally wouldn't consider watching) to see how ESPN recapped Penn State's championship game and relive the high of Thursday night as news of the Lions' victory was shared with millions of viewers around the nation. Yet instead of being awash with pride and fulfillment, I was appalled at ESPN's presentation of what was a great moment in Penn State basketball history.

I turned the television off after the Penn Sate story aired, so I don't know if ESPN ran any other analysis or coverage later in the program, although I doubt that they did. After the montage that started the show featured about four quick shots from the Penn State game, the program opened with news of an NFL trade (five months before the pro football season starts). Then the focus shifted to basketball with highlights from an NBA game and then two quick stories about the coaching vacancies at Georgia and Arizona. Then, the camera cut to a medium shot of anchor Matt Winer and the carnage began.

Over his left shoulder was a graphic that showed the Baylor University logo. No NIT logo, no Penn State logo, just an interlocking 'B' and 'U.' He then waxed sympathetically about the recent history of Baylor Bears basketball, recounting the tragic death of Patrick Dennehy in 2003 and the violations committed by a former coach that resulted in heavy sanctions from the NCAA. Winer continued to praise Bears coach Scott Drew for taking a job that nobody wanted and led into the highlight by saying that the team could win a championship by beating Penn State in the NIT Finals. That was the first mention of the Nittany Lions since the show had begun, setting the Lions up as if they were a villain out to ruin the Cinderella season that Baylor was having.

Before continuing to the highlights that were shown, let's consider the above introduction that Winer gave to the game. There are many ways to write a lead-in to a video highlight, not all of which include centering your story on the team that actually won. The problem isn't that Winer talked about Baylor, it's that he identified the wrong team as the one that was having the more impressive run to the finals. In case he forgot, Baylor was a fucking at-large selection to the NCAA tournament last season! The Bears were 21-11 in 2008 and finished fourth in the Big XII. They brought back four starters this season and were a four-point favorite to win the game against Penn State! And don't try and tell me that ESPN doesn't know what point spreads are, because they are all too eager to run that Hammerin' Hank bullshit during the NFL season and let Chris Berman pick against the spread as that annoying as hell Swami. But, Winer, despite all the evidence of the contrary, sets Baylor up as the underdog for this game instead of Penn State, a team who didn't get itself on NCAA probation for having a coach illegally pay his players and a team who has won more than 20 games just once in the last 16 seasons before this year.

The highlights opened with clips of two Baylor buckets before showing the technical foul that was assessed to the Baylor coach for tossing his jacket after seeing a foul called on his team. Not only did Winer insinuate that Drew didn't deserve the "T," but co-anchor Linda Cohn pipes in with some stupid comment about how he was warm and all he did was take his jacket off. I'm sorry, but when did this "news program" start to resemble the two old guys that sit in the balcony during The Muppet Show and drop one-liners? So we're just going to leave Cohn's microphone open all show long and let her deadpan whenever she wants? Great, really professional.

Even more insulting than having the two banter about how awful of a call this was came when Winer labeled it as the turning point of the game. So a call that was made with 13:25 left in the game that didn't result in a change of possession and resulted in one point for Penn State (since the referee inexplicably blew his whistle as Talor Battle attempted the second shot - a point that was left out of Sportscenter's analysis) was the turning point in a game that would be tied a minute later?

The highlights would go on to show Danny Morrissey hitting a three-pointer and then diving on the floor and busting his lip as well as feature one of Battle's great finishes in the lane towards the end of the game. Then, that was it. No recap of Penn State's season, no playing of Jamelle Cornley's post-game interview or showing the team cut the nets down. Just a table that shows how teams do the year after they win the NIT, as if that has any relevance to how Penn State will do next season!

The coverage that Penn State got on ESPN on Friday morning was insulting, especially considering it won a tournament that was broadcast exclusively by the same network! The way it was presented on Sportscenter made it seem like the only angle that made the championship game interesting was the one seen from Baylor's point of view. There was no mention of the fantastic support that the Penn State fans gave including the 36 buses that traveled all the way from State College to New York. Remember when a dozen buses would go from Scranton to Syracuse to see Gerry McNamara play and Mike Tirico or Sean McDonough would make sure to mention it a million times on Big Monday?!

Why winning a major national tournament garnered so little attention is a mystery to me. Baseball season hasn't started yet, it's still two days before the Final Four, and ESPN doesn't give a shit about hockey anymore since they don't televise the sport any longer - so what else did it have to show that the Penn State win got the shaft? For reference, here's how The New York Times decided to cover the story. What ESPN should realize is that it doesn't make the news, it reports it. Penn State winning a championship was a fantastic story that any talented journalist could have told if he wasn't busy trying to take the lazy Tom Rinaldi-esque let-me-make-you cry angle that the network has fallen in love with. Just because you might not like the story, doesn't mean you can ignore it.

To paraphrase Ray Finkel's mom in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, "ESPN should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell."