Las Vegas won’t get to watch Cinderella Team

Tim Graham

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 9:34 a.m.

Dave McCann knows no matter what he decides, somebody will be upset.

So in selecting which NCAA men's basketball tournament games will be shown on local CBS affiliate KLAS Channel 8, the station's sports director is playing it safe.

"We're just trying to make the largest number of people happy," McCann said.

KLAS decided not to show tonight's Sweet 16 Cinderella matchup between Valparaiso and Rhode Island. Instead, it will air UCLA vs. Kentucky.

"We just try to pick games that mean something to our market," McCann said. "I think the Valparaiso game packs excitement, but we have more UCLA fans in Las Vegas than Valparaiso fans, obviously.

"CBS guarantees us that if Valparaiso is about to get into the Elite Eight, they'll cut in. But the traditional powers of Kentucky and UCLA, we'll take it. That just kind of speaks for itself."

KLAS also will show Purdue vs. Stanford at 5:05 p.m.

Viewers who want to watch Valparaiso and Rhode Island could catch a break because of the game's 7:25 p.m. tip-off. UCLA-Kentucky starts at 6:59 p.m., allowing CBS to switch over if there is time left in Valparaiso-Rhode Island.

"CBS has done a good job of taking viewers where the excitement is and then returning them to where their regional interests lie," McCann said.

One exception -- quickly noticed by UNLV fans -- was when CBS accidentally cut away from the Rebels' first-round game against Princeton last Thursday to show Utah vs. San Francisco.

"The only cities this far west that wanted UNLV-Princeton were Reno and us," McCann said. "Everyone else wanted Utah and San Francisco. So when CBS went to the Utah game, they hit a button and switched over the entire region. Then they realized 'Oops, those two little cities wanted the UNLV game.'"

While that snafu caused considerable reaction from KLAS viewers, McCann claimed to have received no phone calls and just one letter protesting one of his decisions.

"One man was upset we didn't show Arizona's 39-point victory over Nicholls State," he said. "But we went with the Michigan State (vs. Eastern Michigan) since that's who UNLV would have played if they would have beaten Princeton."

Viewers in Las Vegas are easier to please than those in other markets, according to McCann. If they don't like the game they receive at home, they can always watch a different one -- or all of them, for that matter -- at a sports book.

"But I don't think we've made bad choices yet," McCann said.