The News-Gazette.com Weblog

Behind the Mic

Watching NCAA Tournament Has Come A Long Way

Posted by: Brian Barnhart

Thursday, March 26, 2009 7:43 PM

I am typing this while I watch the NCAA tournament on my computer. NCAA.com and CBS TV streams the games and you can pick and choose whatever game or games you want to watch. And do it all for free.

This is not meant to be an advertisement for CBS or the NCAA. But we have come a long way.

I remember watching NCAA tournament games on tape delay after the local 10 o'clock news. Some of you probably remember when very few of the tournament games were on at all.

I remember being in college in the early 1980's and being amazed at how ESPN (when they did the first round games) was able to cut from game to game in the tournament and seem to catch every fantastic finish...one after another after another. In my opnion...CBS still struggles at times to time those cut-aways so that you flow freely from one to another (it seems sometimes like all you do is leave one game to join another close game...only to watch more commericals.)...but in my opinion they have slowly improved at that over the years.

But you know what...it doesnt matter now...Since they are streaming all the games... you can pick the game you want to see...and when you want to choose another game...just click on that game. You can even be your own producer and come and go as you please. I think you can even do all of this on your iPod or laptop...no matter where you are.

So...let me get back to the computer and finish watching these games!

If you want...check out the streaming for yourself.