Today's late tournament game is actually Xavier!

I am surprised, in a good way, that Columbus will actually get Xavier and Pittsburgh as the local game today.

There's a shift the past few years, channel 10 is actually looking at geography rather than blind allegiance to the Big Ten.

History has shown during my 17 years here that WBNS is blinded by the Big Ten and I fully expected to see Purdue despite both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh being closer in geography than West Lafayette.

WBNS does not have a history of logic when deciding what games to show. Something has definitely changed their mind after years of frustration, trying to talk logic to people who didn't seem open to logic at all. This yearly action was the sole reason I refused to watch 10 TV news for over 15 years after I moved here. I'd watch now except the damage is done and I am loyal to another channel's news show now.

The origins of this aggravation began after I moved to Columbus in 1993.

For years, every time there was a nationally televised Kentucky game on channel 10, it meant we would not get to see it.

The years of complaints must have finally gotten through to someone. Gone are the days of them preempting nationally televised Kentucky games in favor of games like Iowa versus Minnesota (seriously!)

Because of this, I boycotted WBNS 10 TV news. I also urged other UK fans not to watch their news and I can only hope it had some effect in costing them revenue over the years with lower ratings than they should have had. And, yes, they were the #1 news cast for several years locally, but they could have had a larger margin.

Complaints to Doug Parker (Mr. White's predecessor) and to Mr. White (wish I could remember his first name) seemed to fall on deaf ears as they hid behind a lie of claiming there was a contract that forced them to show two teams located 13+ hours away that maybe 100 people in Columbus cared about over a team that was 3 hours South in Lexington, KY that had over 5000 alumni living here.

I still remember complaining quite loudly when the brain dead decision came just a few years ago that we would see UCONN against Indiana locally over #1 North Carolina versus #2 Kentucky. It was because Indiana was in the Big Ten. This was a Mike Davis coached Indiana team that sucked harder than a tornado through a trailer park.

When I spoke with the manager that year (Mr. White,) he actually confessed on the phone to me that they blew it by going with the Indiana game. As I pointed out to him, UCONN and Indiana would be the worst beating since "The Passion of the Christ."

I was actually wrong as the Tar Holes throttled Kentucky, but still, it's like the station never considered the financial impact of the large UK fan base in Columbus and the lost opportunity for commercial revenues through higher ratings by alienating the UK fan base.

It's like they never considered that the Kentucky state line is only two hours South of Columbus or that Columbus has the second largest UK alumni base outside of the state in the US (behind Atlanta.)

These actions had gone on for years and happened the two or three times Kentucky played on CBS. In 1995 or 1996, it wasn't even like the game they wanted us to see was going to have an effect on the Buckeyes being last in the Big Ten that year under Randy Ayers. That year was so bad, they started showing Ohio University games instead of Ohio State on local TV. I think parents felt the violence was too much for children to watch.

And now this recently seems to have stopped. The only time a CBS nationally televised Kentucky game the past few years in Columbus was preempted was for the Buckeyes and I am fine with that since they are the local team.

And it means we get to see an Ohio college today instead of a Big Ten team! Consider just a few years back, we were treated to a Big Team instead of the Dayton Flyers in the tournament.

I am awaiting word from the Vatican to see if this constitutes a miracle.