So, did you all enjoy watching the Maryland-Duke game last night?

Probably so, at least what you saw of it.

As you had to have noticed, the game didn't actually get to ESPN's airwaves until more than five minutes in game time had elapsed - around 9:30 p.m., a half-hour after the scheduled air time - because the Villanova-UConn game ran way, way, WAY late. It took that long for them to play the last three-plus minutes, because of all the fouling to stop the clock. Torture. They pushed the Maryland game start back twice, then just tipped off and started showing the score in the upper right corner of the screen. It was all pretty annoying.

Not as annoying, though, as the last three-plus minutes (in game time) at Cameron. That was when ESPN came out of a commercial to a garbled picture, then lost the picture completely. They put up the stat screen for pretty much the rest of the game, with the running clock and the changing score, and with Mike Patrick and Dick Vitale seemingly unsure whether to do radio-style play-by-play because, seemingly, they weren't sure if there was a picture being transmitted.

No conspiracy theories here, especially since it wouldn't make sense for ESPN to knock a Duke game off the air with the result still in doubt. Now, if one of the Crazies kicked out a plug at courtside so that the nation wouldn't witness the Blue Devils losing to Maryland for the second time in three weeks, that's another story. Just kidding.

Fans here, and elsewhere, had to be mad, though.Chopping off the start and finish of the game was unavoidable, but that didn't make it easier to endure.