Norman Chad

Putting Up with Duke

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke. Why always Duke? It has gotten so that TV Guide lists college basketball's annual finale this way: "9 p.m. Ch. 2; NCAA Men's Basketball Championship (CC); 2 hr. 30 min. 412964. Duke vs. Opponent To Be Determined. Jim Nantz and Billy Packer report."

In the interest of full disclosure, I've got to tell you: I generally root against Duke. I rooted against Dallas and Dynasty, too. They're all just a lot of filthy rich guys getting filthy richer, and they all have an attitude about it. J.R. Ewing, Blake Carrington, Christian Laettner—cutthroat capitalists cut from the same silk cloth, if you ask me.

I know you didn't ask me, but I'll answer any damn question I want.

We're talking about conniving, power-hungry guys who'll step on anybody at any time. Believe me, I've seen the videotape. And these fellows do quite well on videotape, year in and year out.

Every spring, in fact, CBS brings in Duke as a midseason replacement series. Duke has lasted longer in prime time than most CBS sitcoms. Speaking of which, it was nice to sec 483 promos during the Final Four for The New Royal Family and Davis Rules. At least CBS didn't claim The Royal Family was new and improved.

So on Monday night, CBS and Duke joined once again for another hardy, hardwood celebration of greed and grit. Naturally, both ended up as winners.

(Incidentally, I need to register a mild protest at this point about the Women's Final Four. Don't get me wrong—I'm an E.R.A. guy, a former subscriber to Ms., a big fan of palimony suits—but I turned on CBS just before 5:30 p.m. EST Saturday to catch the real Final Four, and instead I got women calling timeouts by the bushel! When Sinatra goes on tour, does the opening act run long? Hey, if women want to play some hoop, fine, but not in my living room on my time on semifinal Saturday. Nosiree, Bobbie. Virginia and Stanford called six timeouts—six!—in the final 44.4 seconds. The game actually ended twice. After the buzzer first sounded, the officials reset the clock to .8 of a second—although by the 10ths-of-a-second hand on my watch, I thought there should've been only .6 or .7 of a second left—and, then, mercifully, time expired again. I've seen forsythias bloom faster.)

CBS started slowly Monday night, with one of those fancy-schmancy technotrick openings. The opening should have been like the beginning of a Woody Allen movie—run the titles and start the darn thing. But pretension was bound to creep in when CBS decided to call the 22 minutes of programming before the game "Prelude to a Championship." Geez, it used to be just "the pregame show." What is this, The Nutcracker Suite?

But CBS—like Duke's Laettner—recovered splendidly from early sluggishness. Nantz was solid and understated. Packer, pausing from his corporate/commercial/keeper-of-the-coaching-flame duties, showed his usual sharp eye for court detail. CBS, between commercials and promos, put on its customary big-game face. The cameras and conversation stayed focused on the action: few crowd shots, few sideline shots, little idle chatter. It helps when Dick Vitale works for another network.