CBS gives media, coaches access to tourney coverage

                    

	Steve Lappas is one of many ex-coaches present at CBS Sports' tip-off party for its March Madness coverage. AP

CBS Sports likes to call the Masters a tradition unlike any other. Then again, the company's annual NCAA tournament tip-off party in New York is also a tradition like no other. Where the Masters has Amen's Corner, the green jacket and pimento cheese sandwiches, the CBS Sports tip-off party features an annual sampling of college basketball coaches turned TV heads (this year's group included Craig Esherick, Seth Greenberg and Steve Lappas) and a neverending supply of chino-wearing, silver-tongued agents who tote the accolades of their client sportscasters with the force of a Panamanian strongman. Adding some spice to the mix this year was the surprise appearance of Deadspin editor Will Leitch, who somehow convinced CBS to let him blog from the party. (Deadspin blogging from the offices of CBS Sports reminds me of the time Odysseus and Athena ordered a large wooden horse to be built and dragged into Troy.)

The network can thank Cinderella for a very good start to the tournament. (National ratings were up 6 percent from last year's opening day.) Montana and Texas A&M continued the yearly trend of a No. 12 seed defeating a fifth seed. Winthrop-Tennessee, Indiana-San Diego State and a double-overtime thriller between Boston College and Pacific provided fantastic finishes. A quick tour of the studio reaffirmed that CBS was on top of its game, particularly studio host Greg Gumbel, who worked a 13-hour shift and was seamless in taking viewers from site to site. The research staff deserved kudos as well, if only for providing my colleague and studio analyst Seth Davis with stats as fast as Justin Gatlin. When Davis wanted to know, for instance, how many points Marquette senior forward Steve Novack had scored with 11:59 left in the first half of the Golden Eagles' game against Alabama, one of the 19 researchers glued to their computers shouted back the answer. (A similar request at SI would result in the following retort to Seth Davis: The library is on the 32nd floor, pal.)

The network's game announcers were solid, though Kevin Harlan needs to dial the hyperbole down a notch. When Tennessee's Chris Lofton hit an off-balance 19-footer with 0.4 of a second left to sink Winthrop, Harlan exclaimed, "Where did he get the courage to take that shot!" (Dude, there was no time left on the clock. Desperation is not courage.) Sean McManus, the president of CBS News and CBS Sports, said he was pleased with the coverage, though the network had to tweak its commercials in the evening because of the bomb scare in San Diego, which delayed the start of that regional.

Among the coaches in the room -- Manhattan coach Bobby Gonzalez also dropped by -- Lappas was an interesting newcomer. The former Villanova and UMass coach is now a game and studio analyst for CSTV, which is owned by CBS. Over the past three months, Lappas has commuted from his home in Amherst, Mass., to CSTV's lower Manhattan studios. It is his first foray into national television. "I really like it, but it's different," said Lappas, who was dismissed last March by UMass after four seasons. "You're used to being consumed with basketball as a coach, 24 hours a day, 12 months a year, and now it's really seasonal. I was flipping out in September, October and November. I didn't know what to do with myself.... It's hard to get coaching out of you. It has to be a good job. If it was the right situation, I would be very, very interested. People out there know I'm here. I would like to coach again, but I'm also enjoying this."