The Worldwide Leader is far from that in the sport of college basketball. ESPN invests money to program the sport, but does little to enhance the experience for the viewers.

Before I dive in, I’d like to acknowledge that it’s easy to take shots at ESPN. They’re the top dogs in the sports broadcasting world. For two decades, they seemingly had a monopoly on all of the top college basketball games, excluding weekends on CBS. Now that FOX and Turner Sports have entered the fray, we’re quickly learning that ESPN puts out an objectively bad product.

First, A Compliment

Before I talk about how much they stink, I would at least like to thank ESPN for refreshing the rotation of broadcasters. One can only hear so much of Karl Ravech and Jimmy Dykes before losing one’s sanity. Over the last two weeks, we’ve gotten a changeup with traditional ACC (Wes Durham, Dennis Scott) and Big 12 (Dave Pasch, Fran Fraschilla) crews.

In my biased opinion, Fraschilla is pound-for-pound their best color commentator. Even though some of his commentary was very basic — “Officials are blowing their whistle, so put your head down and get to the rim” — it was spot on. Thanks, ESPN!

So. Many. Technical. Errors.

You don’t have to have a trained eye for TV and know all of the broadcast jargon to notice the obvious errors from the Kentucky-Arkansas game. At one point, they tried showing a “stinger” of Otega Oweh, a graphic that leads off a highlight package. The first misfired, cutting to a full-court shot, then they fired it back up, leaving us with a blue screen for a few seconds.

Late in the game, Dave Pasch attempted to use part of a timeout to share “good news.” Well, the production crew wasn’t ready to share the good news. They had to wait for another timeout to share that they raised more than $14 million during V Week.

This isn’t technically a technical aspect, but can you provide a little variety in your crowd shots? We saw the same part of the Arkansas student section a handful of times. When Fran remarked about the Tysons seemingly standing in his way, there wasn’t a camera to illustrate it for the audience. Also, the coaches were kind of a big deal in this matchup. We really only saw the benches when they were getting technicals. We might not have seen Chin Coleman chomping his gum next to Brad Calipari’s well-manicured line beard if Doug Shows had not intervened multiple times.

Can we get a replay, ESPN?

Mark Pope challenged an out-of-bounds call at the 7-minute mark in the first half. That’s a pretty risky move. Did we see if it was close enough to challenge? Not until after they took a TV timeout. The ball was clearly off Darius Acuff and the Cats retained possession.

At least we eventually saw that replay. We didn’t get to see how close a call it was on Kentucky’s 10-second violation. Did Brandon Garrison goaltend? Hard to say. Those were not the only times during the game when I was begging ESPN for a second look at a play.

One could argue that Instant Replay is playing too big a role in sports, yet ESPN has somehow found a way to make its college basketball audience beg for more.

ESPN Doesn’t Make a Game Feel like a Big Game

When SEC football teams take the field on Saturday at 3:30, you can feel the magnitude of the game. It’s amplified during the College Football Playoff. You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on tickets to witness the pageantry that amplifies the atmosphere.

How do they get college basketball fans ready for a big game? By having Seth Greenberg talk about how Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybansta will guard one another. One’s a point guard. The other is a power forward.

When the CBS crew is at a college basketball arena, you can feel the energy in the building. ESPN, take notes. Just because you don’t own the rights to the postseason tournament doesn’t mean you should neglect it, and that’s exactly what they do.

The SEC’s deal with ESPN is great for Kentucky’s bottom line, but this Kentucky basketball fan yearns for a Saturday afternoon with Ian Eagle and Bill Raftery courtside at Rupp Arena.