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The Week Ahead In TV Sports

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If you like college basketball, clear your Saturday schedule, because while there’s interesting games throughout the week, it’s the penultimate Saturday of the regular season that features big battles with possible conference championships at stake. So our walk through the week in TV sports will begin with the end in mind, as we start with all there is to look forward to on Saturday.

*Tip it off at noon EST with three big games. The juiciest is Louisville-Syracuse (CBS) and the ultimate significance does depend on what happens earlier in the week. Both teams are a game back of Georgetown in the Big East standings, but the Hoyas have a tough trip to UConn on Wednesday. A loss there, and Cards-Orange could be for a piece of first place.

In the Atlantic 10, both Butler and Virginia Commonwealth lost last week to St. Louis and need help, but both—especially the Rams, who are still just a game out—have a shot at the A-10 crown. They go head-to-head on ESPN2. And Alabama, featured here at TheSportsNotebook last week, is two games back of Florida, but gets  a shot at the Gators on ESPN. As noted in last week’s feature, the Tide are that rare power conference team who has a shot at a regular season championship, but is also fighting for its life for the NCAA Tournament.

*When the clock moves to 2 PM EST it’s a big battle between Jesuit schools—perhaps some viewing fare for Benedict XVI in his first weekend of retirement. Notre Dame pays a visit to Marquette on ESPN. Don’t overlook Arizona State-USC an hour later on FSN. The Sun Devils still have to work to do to nail down an NCAA bid and a tough closing schedule to do it with.

*Speaking of work to do, Kentucky can’t let up after Saturday night’s big win over Missouri. The Wildcats pay a visit to fellow NCAA bubble team Arkansas (4 PM ET, CBS). This isn’t necessarily the best game of the day, but it’s the biggest matching two teams who can both swing either way on Selection Sunday. By halftime of this game, there will be a 5 PM ET tip out west between Colorado and Cal. We looked at red-hot Cal yesterday here at TheSportsNotebook and the Buffaloes are right in the hunt themselves. The Buffs-Bears battle will be on ESPNU.

*It will be the dinner hour on the East Coast when the day’s best game starts at 6 PM ET. Miami makes the long-awaited return trip to Duke. The Hurricanes jumped on the national stage back in January when they smoked the Blue Devils in Durham. Its revenge time for Duke, but Miami can also bring a little chip on its shoulder. The ‘Canes haven’t played well in two weeks and suffered an embarrassing loss at Wake Forest over the weekend. The gap between the ACC is down to two games, so a once-secure regular season championship for Miami isn’t there just yet.  If this game isn’t close in the final ten minutes, you can switch over to Iowa-Indiana at 7:30 PM ET on the Big Ten Network. The Hawkeyes still have an NCAA chance, but need a really big win. This would qualify.

*The prime-time showcase on ESPN is going to be Arizona-UCLA at 9 PM ET as the Gameday crew packs for Westwood. Both teams are in the mix with Oregon, along with fast-charging Cal for the Pac-12 title.

So settle in at noon and go for eleven straight hours with college basketball games of significance in each time slot, with the Miami-Duke battle in the ACC being the biggest. Here’s the rundown of other notable TV sports moments this week, including NBA & NHL action…

Monday: We mentioned that Louisville-Syracuse game that starts the Saturday marathon. If the Orange want to be in the hunt for a Big East title it starts tonight with a trip to Marquette (7 PM ET, ESPN). This game might have been a winner-take-all battle for first place before Saturday when the ‘Cuse lost to Georgetown and Marquette fell at Villanova. But it’s still plenty significant. And Big 12 co-leaders Kansas and Kansas State are each in action. The Jayhawks go to Iowa State (9 PM ET, ESPN), while the Wildcats host lowly Texas Tech (7 PM ET, ESPNU).

Tuesday: Florida’s got that two-game cushion in the SEC we mentioned, but with a road game at improving Tennessee (9 PM ET, ESPN), the race could tighten by Saturday. And Indiana puts its #1 ranking and two-game Big Ten lead on the line at Minnesota in the game just prior on ESPN. The Hoosiers still have a road trip to Michigan next week, so this is not a two-game lead that  Tom Crean can feel comfortable with. And speaking of Indiana, the state’s NBA team is on a roll and up to second place in the Eastern Conference. They play Golden State tonight, though you’ll have to be a League Pass subscriber to get the privilege of watching.

Wednesday: The best college game of the night is Georgetown-UConn (7 PM ET, ESPN2), with a Hoya loss meaning good news for Syracuse, Marquette and Louisville. This is also a good night for professional sports. Across the state border from UConn, the Knicks will be in Madison Square Garden to host Golden State (8 PM ET, ESPN). Carmelo Anthony’s team is in a tough stretch right now and needs to right the ship. And NBC Sports Network offers an NHL doubleheader starting at 7:30 PM ET. In the East, Washington needs to start winning quickly, as goes to Philadelphia. As do last year’s Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings, who host Detroit in the nightcap. The compressed hockey season is almost halfway through, so the Caps and Kings can’t be cavalier about these games.

Thursday: The TNT doubleheader in the NBA is dull, with Philadelphia playing early and Minnesota meeting the Los Angeles Lakers later. That’s three disappointments all in prime-time. Only Chicago, who hosts the Sixers isn’t a train wreck. The college fare offers an important appetizer though—Duke goes to Virginia (9 PM ET, ESPN) and if the Dookies want their big Saturday battle with Miami to be about more than revenge, they need to get this tough road win.

Friday: ESPN’s NBA coverage gives us LeBron & Durant, as Miami hosts Memphis in the opener and Oklahoma City goes to Denver in the nightcap. Action starts at 8 PM ET on ESPN. In hockey, no team is hotter than the 15-0-3 Chicago Blackhawks, who will be on the NHL Network at 8:30 PM ET against Columbus.

Saturday: For those who aren’t into college basketball, the NHL Network is offering an all-day quadruple-header. Start it with Ottawa-Philadelphia at noon ET, where the Senators are hanging with Montreal and Boston in the Northeast Division. Then it’s Washington-Winnipeg with the Caps facing the aforementioned urgency. At 7 PM ET, a good one between Pittsburgh and Montreal goes down, and it caps off with a big game out west with Los Angeles and Vancouver.

Sunday: The best college game on the board is Michigan State-Michigan (4 PM ET, CBS), but it only matters for conference title purposes if Indiana loses either at Minnesota on Tuesday or at home to Iowa on Saturday. If one of those happens, the Sparty-Wolverines is a big battle. For the NBA, it’s more LeBron & Durant. The Heat pay a visit to the Big Apple to start ABC’s doubleheader at 1 PM ET with their game against the Knicks. Then it’s Thunder-Clippers in the second game. At 8 PM ET, ESPN picks up the NBA with Bulls-Pacers being a key game in the Central Division race. Hockey fans can check out Montreal-Boston (7:30, NHL), a battle among Eastern Conference contenders and two blood rivals.

NHL Weekend Preview

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Four of the NHL’s six division titles are still very much in play as we head into the homestretch of a regular season that ends on April 8. Only the New York Rangers in the Atlantic and the Vancouver Canucks in the Northwest are really home free for a first-place finish and guaranteed top-three seeding, and of these two, only the Rangers are in complete command for the race for the #1 seed in their conference. Everything else is neck-and-neck.

Tonight’s card is highlighted by Chicago’s visit to Ottawa. The Senators can close back to within one point of Boston in the Northeast, after the Bruins narrowly escaped New Jersey in overtime last night. The Blackhawks’ ship has steadied after some recent struggles, but they are by no means home free in the West. They’ll have to play tonight with forward Jonathan Toews, one of the league’s best offensive threats. At the borderline of the West playoff race are games with Dallas-Edmonton and Calgary-Anaheim. The Stars would make the playoffs over Los Angeles on a tiebreaker as of today, while Calgary is just a point back.

Saturday has a busy schedule, but not many really good games. One notable exception is Nashville-Florida. While the Predators are in good shape for the playoffs and not likely to climb to an elite seed, the Panthers are in a three-team dogfight for the Southeast Division with Winnipeg and Washington.

The NBC cameras will come out on Sunday in Madison Square Garden when the Bruins come MSG to play the Rangers at 12:30 PM ET. The game virtually coincides with the Knicks-Celtics game in the Garden on ABC, ensuring busy remotes in the Big Apple and the Hub. Ottawa will be in Florida, and Philadelphia visits Washington, giving the Eastern Conference three big games. In the West, the key game is Detroit-Chicago, although the Red Wings are still without Pavel Datsyuk at forward, and for at least this game will miss veteran defensemen Nicklas Lidstrom. The Wings have cooled a bit after their record home winning streak and are now in a tie with St. Louis for the Central Division title. Both the Red Wings and Blues are hot on Vancouver’s heels for the top spot in the West overall.

If the current NHL standings hold until the playoffs—admittedly an unlikely prospect, but we’re close enough to the finish line to start looking forward to some possible first-round playoff matchups—then Phoenix-Chicago in the West has the potential to be an excellent first-round series. It’s a complete contrast in styles, with the Blackhawks having a huge edge in frontline talent with Marian Hossa, Patrick Kane and Toews, while Phoenix has the goalie in Mike Smith. You usually bet the goaltender in the NHL playoffs, but Chicago’s advantage among the regular five is significant enough to make a  potential Blackhawks-Coyotes battle one to watch.

NHL Weekend Preview

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I should really stop looking at the NHL schedule because I find myself wanting to scream louder each time I see what looks like complete incompetence on the part of the league hierarchy. Now if you ran a league  that was starving some attention, and were in a situation where the NBA was on its All-Star break, thereby freeing  up Friday night in the eyes of sports fans who might otherwise watch a hoops doubleheader on ESPN, wouldn’t you seize the moment and put some good games on that day? Or even allowing that it’s tough to predict that far in advance what will be a good game, at least put a full schedule and maximize your chances? Or at least put one bleepin’ game on TV  on your own network!?!! I swear, I’ve got to be in the wrong line of work, because if Gary Bettman is making the kind of dough he’s pulling down for running a league this incompetently, then I must have missed my moment somewhere.

Even if the NHL Network is nowhere to be found tonight, Vancouver-New Jersey is a good game, with the Canucks closing to within a point of the #1 spot in the West after ending Detroit’s record-home winning streak in a shootout last night. New Jersey’s the hottest team going right now, so this promises to be a good one, so long as Vancouver isn’t on a hangover.

Saturday’s card is pretty good, even if the Tampa-Pittsburgh game angled its way onto the NHL Network at 1 PM ET. But the hot Southeast Division race has changed hands again. With Florida and Washington vying to see who could backpedal faster, Winnipeg finally stepped up and nudged into the lead. The Jets (who just moved from Atlanta, lest anyone think the NCAA is in charge of geographic alignment here) host St. Louis, Florida goes to Carolina and Washington has a prime-time game with a good Toronto team at 7 PM ET on the NHL Network. And in a huge battle in the Northeast Division, Ottawa continues its quest to chase down slumping Boston when they host the Bruins. We might have two new division leaders in the East by the time Saturday is done.

The card on Sunday is again tame, although with the Daytona 500 by day and the NBA All-Star game by night, I won’t go off on the league again. Anaheim somehow again managed to wangle a NBCSN TV slot against Chicago at 7 PM ET (does the ownership of the last-place Ducks have blackmail material on someone at the networks that they keep getting on TV?). The game is part of a back-to-back tour of SoCal for the Blackhawks, who play a key game in Los Angeles on Saturday, with both teams lurking near the bottom of the Western Conference playoff ladder.