Finishing third in Pac-12 basketball is a sentence commensurate to scheduling a 6 a.m. flight.
This year’s No. 3 team is slotted to play a Pac-12 tournament opener at 9:30 p.m. Tucson time. If it wins, it will play a 9:30 p.m. Friday semifinal.
The championship game is at 9.
Thank you, ESPN.
The TV networks pay for the big-money items in college basketball. When funds are needed to pay an assistant coach $300,000, or to charter a jet for an immediate escape from Pullman, Wash., schools dip into their media rights funds.
The fans of those basketball teams pay later. Much later.
Payment due: The remaining February showcase games of ACC basketball — Duke at Virginia on Feb. 15 and Louisville at North Carolina a week later — both tipoff at 9 p.m. in the east.
Payment due II: The Pac-12 does not escape basketball’s schedule from Where The Sun Don’t Shine. Utah plays two more 9 p.m., games: Feb. 23 at Colorado and March 2 in Salt Lake City against Cal.
When media rights money became the answer to the economic ills of college athletics, the schools yielded the right to establish starting times. They trusted ESPN and the others to be sensible. About 15 years ago, Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood defiantly said, "I will never allow one of our home games to start at 9 p.m."
Where’s Jim Livengood when you need him?
