The Week In Tv Sports

Saturday 3/15

COLLEGE BASKETBALL
NCAA Tournament
Is it a fair field that includes Fairfield (11-18) or an unfair one that requires the best player in the tournament. Wake Forest center Tim Duncan, to travel cross-continent to Tucson for a first-round meeting with Big Continent, 7'3", 345-pound St. Mary's center Brad Millard? If the University of North Carolina-Charlotte is the name of one tournament team, then how is the College of Charleston Southern California the name of four? Can UCLA, which began the year on the verge of insurrection, pull off a resurrection under coach Steve Lavin? March along to the madness as the field trims itself from 32 teams to eight in four days.
•CBS, 12 PM, SAT & SUN; 7:30 PM, THURS & FRI

HORSE RACING
Florida Derby
The horse is a force, a source reports. Though he never went to the post as a 2-year-old, Pulpit (above) has won all three of his races this winter, including the Fountain of Youth Stakes, by an average of more than five lengths. Heading into the Florida Derby (telecast as a segment of Wide World of Sports), the 3-year-old chestnut colt is generating so much buzz that the Daily Racing Form has launched a page 2 column called "Pulpit Watch" (head shot included). An entry last week reported that rumors of Pulpit's retirement because of a leg injury were erroneous. Straight from the horse's mouth.
•ABC, 4:30 PM

Sunday 3/16
DOCUMENTARIES
Sports on the Silver Screen
Hollywood owes some of its most memorable lines—"Win one for the Gipper," Ronald Reagan (right) as the dying George Gipp gasped to Pat O'Brien, who plays his coach, Knute Rockne, in 1940's Knute Rockne-All American—characters (Rocky Balboa) and films (Field of Dreams) to the sports-movie genre. This 84-minute program pays homage to just about all of them while providing behind-the-scenes tidbits and celebrity interviews (review, page 18).
•HBO, 8 PM

Tuesday 3/18
PRO BASKETBALL
Sonics at Bulls
In six months Seattle forward Shawn Kemp has gone from coach George Karl's doghouse to Penthouse. Kemp, who irked Karl by holding out for 22 days during training camp in October, is profiled in the April issue of the magazine and is hailed as "the most likely successor to [Michael] Jordan's crown when His Airness abdicates." The Reign Man or whoever turns out to be Air's heir may have to wait a while to ascend the throne, as Jordan proved by scorching the Sonics for a game-high 45 points in Chicago's 91-84 win in Seattle on Feb. 2.
•TNT, 8 PM

Thursday 3/20
FIGURE SKATING
World Championships (Men's and Pairs competitions)
Defending U.S. and world men's champion Todd Eldredge (right) is the son of a Chatham, Mass., commercial fisherman. As a lad Todd would often accompany his father, John, as he went off in search of cod and haddock, but ultimately, says his mother, Ruth, "Todd preferred water in its frozen state." Eldredge will have to be solid in Lausanne, Switzerland, to withstand the challenge of the 1994 and '95 world champion, Elvis Stojko of Canada. Two weeks ago Stojko nailed the first quad-triple combination jump in skating history to defeat Eldredge at the Champions Series Finals.
•ABC, 8 PM

Friday 3/21
BOXING
Montell Griffin vs. Roy Jones Jr. Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman
The Friday-night fights return. Classic Sports delivers a low blow to HBO—and trumps Donald Trump—by replaying the epic 1974 Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire opposite light heavyweight champion Jones's title defense against the highly regarded Griffin (26-0), from Trump's Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. The Ali-Foreman heavyweight battle, the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary film When We Were Kings, introduced a worldwide audience to the confounding rope-a-dope tactic and confirmed Ali's status as The Greatest. The flashy Jones (34-0) recently learned that he may belatedly receive a gold medal from the '88 Olympics because of evidence that officials were bribed to vote against him in a bout he seemingly won easily; here he receives another lesson in ring injustice.
•HBO, 9:30 PM
•CLASSIC SPORTS, 10 PM

All times Eastern. Schedules are subject to change.