The Week In Tv Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 3/18

? NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
CBS 1 PM, 3 PM, 5:30 PM AND 8 PM
Center Kenyon Martin's broken fibula should sideline pretournament favorite Cincinnati before the field is winnowed to eight schools by Friday night. With Martin gone, we can only agree even more emphatically with Dickie V that superb guard play is the indispensable ingredient in March. That's why schools such as Arizona, with Gilbert Arenas and Jason Gardner, and Temple, with Pepe Sanchez, are penciled in on so many experts' fourth-round brackets. CBS's telecasts continue on Sunday (noon, 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.) and on Thursday and Friday (7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m each night).

? NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament
ESPN2 10 PM; ESPN MIDNIGHT
Chez Ralph? Shea Stadium? ACL U.? Which pseudonym best fits Gampel Pavilion, home of the Connecticut women's team and the most determined player in college hoops, junior guard Shea Ralph? Having overcome two anterior cruciate ligament operations, Ralph, the Big East Player of the Year, will lead the top-ranked Huskies as they play at home in the first and (barring a huge upset) second round, which continues on ESPN and ESPN2 on Sunday and Monday.

MONDAY 3/20
?Investigative Reports: Playing to Extremes
A&E 9 PM
I HAVE NO LIFE—MY DAUGHTER PLAYS AAU BASKETBALL reads the inscription on the back of a T-shirt worn by the mother of a teenage athlete. This somewhat simplistic hour-long documentary, hosted by Bill Kurtis, explores the question, Do parents have no lives because of their children's year-round sports involvement, or are kids devoting too much time to sports because their parents have no lives? If only someone had posed that query to, say, Stefano Capriati or Jim Pierce.

THURSDAY 3/23
?Avalanche at Coyotes
ESPN2 10 PM
Shazbat! Now Colorado boasts Mork and Bourque. Last week five-time Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Ray Bourque, who broke in with the Bruins in 1979—just a year after Mindy McConnell of Boulder took in a stray Orkan—was sent to Denver in hopes of at last winning a Stanley Cup. The former Bruin said na-noo, na-noo to the Avalanche on March 8 in a win over the Flames in which (not coincidentally) Colorado scored a season-high eight goals. Through Sunday the Avalanche had 77 points in the standings and the Coyotes 78, lending urgency to tonight's game in the Western Conference playoff picture.

Don't Miss

SUNDAY 3/19
? Lakers at Knicks
NBC NOON
In a recent three-day span Los Angeles dis-Smits'ed the Pacers and sent the Heat into mourning—and through Sunday those clubs were the best in the East. Meanwhile, in hopes of maximizing media coverage, Oscar De La Hoya was thinking about fighting at the Staples Center on June 17, the day between Games 6 and 7 of the NBA Finals—which assumes that an East team would extend a series against the Lakers that far. Well, if anyone could, it's New York. With Patrick Ewing (above) guarding Shaquille O'Neal, and Latrell Sprewell D'ing up Kobe Bryant, we love New York in June. Besides, at home the Knicks were 6-1 this season against likely West playoff teams.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE