Last night, tip-off of the final of the Legends Classic between Villanova and Michigan got pushed back 15 minutes, to 10:15 PM ET because of a football game between Ohio and Miami (OH). The game aired on ESPN2 and was an extremely close contest until Villanova ultimately came away with a 60-55 win, thanks to this sick block by JayVaughn Pinkston (which I could watch all day, but I digress).

After the game, Michigan coach John Beilein offered his thoughts on the delayed tip-off and launched a biting criticism aimed at ESPN. Via College Basketball Talk:

“Was anybody else bothered today by us moving back 10 minutes to accommodate ESPN?” he asked, and it’s important to note that this wasn’t a question directed to him. He said this after the final question of his press conference had been asked, after the reporters covering the 60-55 Michigan loss had started planning what they were going to ask Villanova head coach Jay Wright.

His rant was completely and totally unsolicited.

“I mean, I love ESPN, guys, I love it,” Beilein said, “but when they told me that the game was being moved back 15 minutes, something is wrong. We have a whole bunch of guys with 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. classes tomorrow morning and we move that game to 10:15 so that a football game could be finished.”

“Let us start our game but this is way out of whack when we move a game 15 minutes,” he said. “It’s already at the wrong time — 10 p.m. on the East Coast — and now move it more 15 minutes. I love ESPN — they’re so good for us — but they got that one wrong. We can’t do that to our student-athletes. Tell Spike Albrecht when he goes to his 9:00 class today that it was more important that we started that (at 10:15) than at 10:00. This is wrong and we’re going to fix it.”

Okay, first of all, how big of a deal is 15 minutes? Second of all, Beilein knew what he was getting into well ahead of time, assuming he, you know, checked the tournament schedule. And third, and MOST importantly, would he have made those comments if Michigan had come out with the win? And did saying that he loved ESPN twice in the midst of his rant really mean anything? Nope – that love was lost between all the “they got this wrong” statements. But Beilein didn’t stop at the press conference and continued on Twitter.

If no college basketball game should ever start after 9 PM how do we accommodate March Madness and other tournaments? Start games at 6 AM? Is he really willing to give up that TV time? How will that help recruiting? Beilein can’t have his cake and eat it too. If Beilein doesn’t want his games to be nationally televised on ESPN and play in these tournaments, there are tons of teams that would be glad to take Michigan’s place. This again just brings me back to my earlier question of whether or not the pushed back tip-off time of a measly 15 minutes would have even come up had the Wolverines not lost.

[College Basketball Talk]

About Reva Friedel

Reva is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and the AP Party. She lives in Orange County and roots for zero California teams.

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