The Week In Tv Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 3/17
Red Wings at Avalanche
ABC 3 PM
The Avalanche is burying its NHL brethren with the best defense team assembled since the O.J. Simpson trial. League-leading Colorado (101 points through Sunday) recently traded for defenseman Rob Blake, who has one Norris Trophy, or four fewer than blue line mate Ray Bourque. Goalie Patrick Roy has three Vezina Trophies and is the league's alltime wins leader. Closing argument to Detroit, which had the NHL's second-best record: "When they drop the puck, you're outta luck!"

THURSDAY 3/22
NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament
CBS THURSDAY AND FRIDAY 7:30 PM
What if Survivor creator Mark Burnett had been a member of this year's tournament selection committee? "Providence is out," he might have said. "Viewers will confuse the school with the NBC show. And I can't name a single starter on Wisconsin, so we'll give Gervase to the Badgers." Harsh reality programming—call it Survive and Advance—continues tonight with regional semifinals from Philadelphia and Anaheim, followed by games from Atlanta and San Antonio tomorrow night.

FRIDAY 3/23
SportsCentury: Pete Maravich
ESPN CLASSIC 8 PM
"It was as if you'd melted down all 12 Harlem Globetrotters," says writer Ralph Wiley of Maravich, "and filled up this skinny six-six white frame with everything they had." This fascinating one-hour documentary is replete with clips of Maravich's ball handling and scoring wizardry. It also examines how, until he found religion late in life, Pistol Pete, who died in 1988 at 40 of a heart attack during a pickup game, was aimless when he didn't have a ball in his hands.

Don't Miss

SATURDAY 3/17-SUNDAY 3/18
Bay Hill Invitational
NBC SATURDAY 3 PM; SUNDAY 2:30 PM
Napster, R.I.P. edition, or what's Love got to do with it? Two years ago Davis Love III (above), who has seven top 10 finishes but no wins (never my Love) in this event, hit a bunker shot that landed 30 feet beyond the 17th hole at Bay Hill. Frustrated, he became a crazy little thing called Love, clubbing a nearby sprinkler head with a sand wedge (Love hurts). At last year's Bay Hill, Tiger Woods said, "Bye, bye, Love" while beating him by four strokes. This year's tournament, however, has the look of Love, because the 2001 Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner is second on the PGA Tour in earnings. "I don't care too much for money," he might reply. "Money can't buy me love."

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.