One shinning moment -- Not!

So you thought CBS' coverage of the NFL was like eating nails? Holy cow! Compared to its NCAA Tournament coverage, a Fall Sunday with CBS is like eating warm apple pie.

I'm sorry to see March go, and with it NCAA basketball. But we are never sorry to say "sayonara" to the EYE, as once again the network butchered and bamboozled its way through coverage of a big sporting event.

Looking for some adjectives to describe CBS' behavior?

How about weak, shameless, unabashed, over-dramatic, cluttered, pathetic, annoying and last, but not least, insulting!

That's right, insulting, because when tuning in to watch a basketball game, this is what we got:

1. Pop ups of graphics, during the game on the bottom of the screen, promoting the likes of Survivor, CSI and Letterman. This is during the game between plays when viewers deserve analysis, not shameless promotions.

2. Promos of The Masters, a golf tournament so widely known and recognized that even your common weekend hacker knows when it is held. Yet, for some reason, CBS felt the need to have commentator Jim Nantz recite "A Tradition Unlike Any Other" 800 times a game, plus they put the logo in the bottom of the TV screen while the game was in play.

3. Halftime filler in which an icon (Dick Enberg) is thrown at us for sentimental reasons, only to recite a boring and attempted tear-jerker of a segment that has no relevance or meaning whatsoever to the game at hand.

4. More halftime filler in which Billy Packer does his best Dick Vitale imitation, trying to announce the Cingular "Fan of the Tournament." CBS, trying to get Packer to pull off a Vitale-like spot in which he congregates with a rowdy fan is like trying to get Bill Clinton to serve as MC of the Republican Governors' Convention. Please!

5. Advance notice after advance notice by Jim Nantz about "One Shining Moment."

6. Tickers at the bottom of the screen during game action, cutting off about 20 percent of the full picture, showing us starting times for "future" games, and, even worse, the leading scorers in the tournament, during the National Title game for crying out loud. Who cares who the fourth-leading scorer of the tourney is while there's three minutes left in a still undecided game!

CBS pays millions of dollars to the NCAA for the right to show the tournament, only to torture fans. As far as I'm concerned, they are a lost network when it comes to sports coverage,