FILE – Alabama forward Essence Cody and Florida State forward Makayla Timpson reach for the opening tip-off in the first half of a first-round college basketball game in the women’s NCAA Tournament in Austin, Texas, Friday, March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
AP

THE WHOLE NEW TRUTH IS that March comes in like a lion’s 72-inch HD screen with far too many sports and games on TV.

No human being constrained by a conventional 168-hour week could possibly watch all.

Was it Chaka Khan, Rufus and Stevie Wonder who first suggested 48 hours in each day?

It’s a wonder there are enough vehicle, car insurance, bank card and fast-food commercials to support the mind-numbing onslaught.

FROM THE NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT, to the women’s, to conference tourneys, to impending stretch runs of the NBA and NHL regular seasons, to Major League Baseball, to everything in between, the list goes on and on.

And that scroll doesn’t even touch the incessant chatter about NFL free-agent signings and predraft speculation. (Such as, Lake Forest hopefully honing in on “Sweetness Boise,” Ashton Jeanty.)

A COROLLARY ABOUT college basketball — especially the men’s side — is that it has pigeonholed itself into one month high on the marquee after four months churning toward its most high-profile national close-ups.

It is an off-Broadway show awaiting its annual capsulized run on The Great White Way.

Here’s a pair of facts:

· By the time the NCAA crowned Ohio State as its FBS champion on Jan. 20, close to 60% of the Division I college basketball schedule had been played; and

· By the time the Eagles tush-pushed the Chiefs all around in Super Bowl 59 on Feb. 9, almost 75% of that same slate had been played in the shadows of the NFL.

DOESN’T REALLY LEAVE MUCH TIME for any primacy of college basketball to take hold, does it?

Especially in the dizzying revolving door of the NIL/transfer portal era.

No fewer than five automatic bids into the NCAA men’s tournament will be completed by nightfall Sunday. Among those conference tourney champs will be winners from the Atlantic Sun, the Big South, the Missouri Valley, the Ohio Valley and the Summit League.

There will be 26 more automatics in the next week and then a field-filling 37 announced next weekend on Selection Sunday.

All lions at point of entry.

And all but one lambs by Monday night, April 7, at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

STREET-BEATIN’:

Credible reports that Stephen A. Smith is about to receive a five-year, $100M extension from Disney ESPN/ABC underscores what a land of sheer desperation daytime sports cable programming has become. A reasonable observer would list the highlight trait on his resume as “predictably cartoonish assertiveness.” He makes Tony Kornheiser look like Mike Wilbon. …

Please hold all cheers for any Blackhawks maneuvering at Friday’s NHL trade deadline: A fundamental flaw remains that GM Kyle Davidson is moving forward with minimal input from Anders Sorensen, a head coach who won’t be back. A big bench Q also remains: Why hasn’t red-hot vet Teuvo Teravainen been getting five-on-five line time alongside slumping sophomore Connor Bedard? …

Question for the orange-tie wing at Halas Hall: Do George McCaskey and Kevin Warren ever listen to flagship radio station WMVP-AM (1000)? A recent sampling was about as transfixing as sitting in a laundromat after 10 p.m. and humming along with the dryers. Scheduled deliveries of cleverness and insight to AM-oh-oh-oh have apparently been permanently diverted. …

The late Mrs. Virginia McCaskey stipulated that 300 seats at her funeral service in Mount Prospect last month be set aside for mainstream fans. No one can question that the lady maintained highly commendable standards of class, dignity and kindness to her final earthly end zone. …

Sunday’s Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball title game has had all the underpinnings of a showcase event for Drake’s Ben McCollum (1 p.m., CBS). Informed speculation has McCollum targeted for the open HC job at Indiana, but Iowa makes much more sense. (Devoted Hawkeyes fans deserve something fresh and upward; the 43-year-old McCollum was born in Iowa City.) …

Charles Barkley is telling all who will listen that the Cavaliers are an NBA Finals team. Anyone who had the depleted Bulls +13½ at home vs. Donovan Mitchell and crew Tuesday night won’t disagree. The game was tied with 7:02 remaining; push-button CLE won by 22. (Luka, LeBron and the Lakers would be the best championship series opponent for the lifeboating NBA and its broadcast partners.) …

Jimmy Johnson will be missed from Fox/NFL programming in much the same sense as Dan Rather’s retirement is still felt at CBS News. (Meaning not at all.) Johnson made a ton of dough off football, coached and won big at impressive levels and apparently left a pox on The House of Jerry Jones in Dallas. As a TV presence, he was smooth and as real as plastic party cups from a Dollar Store. …

Connie Kowal informs that 38 of the 364 universities currently fielding Division-I teams have never received an NCAA men’s bid. (Ouch.) Three are in the Land o’ Winkin’: Western Illinois, Chicago State and SIU-Edwardsville. Maybe the 38 could be invited to a special postseason “Dog Eat Dog” event, hosted by the cat-scratching Ted Nugent (St. Viator ’67). …

And Demon-eyed Dave Corzine, on a recent published report that four Queens were beaten by a Queen-high straight flush in the poker room at Rivers Casino in Des Plaines: “So there were five Queens in the deck?” (Oh, as Al McGuire warned, the dangers of a DePaul education.)

Jim O’Donnell’s Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.