Joined-in-progress becoming the norm in college basketball telecasts

Until the TV networks and cable programmers schedule more than a tidy two hours for each college basketball broadcast, viewers will gnash their teeth over joined-in-progress starts, such as at the UA-ASU game last week. Fox Sports 1 delayed the UA-ASU tipoff until 7:12 p.m., but when the St. John’s-Providence game required double-overtime, it meant viewers missed the first eight minutes of the Arizona-ASU game. The days of two-hour college basketball games are long gone, given 10 permissible coaches’ timeouts and eight media timeouts per game. Utah’s win over UCLA on Saturday went 2 hours 9 minutes. … Salpointe Catholic receivers Cameron Denson and Kaelin Deboskie, both committed to play college football at Arizona, will not play in the West Coast Bowl next Sunday in Redondo Beach, Calif., as announced by bowl officials. Lancers tackle Breeon Auzenne will play, however. About 70 of the top high school senior football players in the West, including five of Rich Rodriguez’s committed players, are on the all-star rosters. It will not be televised. … New ASU athletic director Ray Anderson confirmed last week that naming rights to Sun Devil Stadium are available as part of a planned $225 redevelopment of the old stadium. That’s progress, I suppose. Oregon State sold its football naming rights to a grocer a few years ago. The one unknown variable to Anderson’s hire at ASU is that he has never been a fundraiser, which is almost half the job. He has been an attorney and an agent. A modern college AD can’t sit in the bunker and pontificate; it’s a get-your-hands-dirty position. If Anderson needs any pointers on how to run a contemporary athletic department, from student relations to community interaction, he should ask Greg Byrne for a tutorial.