NEW YORK — John Beilein was more upset about ESPN’s start time Tuesday night than he was about losing to Villanova, 60-55, in the Legends Classic championship game.
“Was anyone else bothered with us moving back (the tip-off) 10 minutes to accommodate ESPN?” Beilein said in quotes transcribed by MILive.com. “I mean, I love ESPN, guys, I love it, but when they told me that game was being moved back 15 minutes — something is wrong. We have a whole bunch of guys with 8 and 9 o’clock classes tomorrow morning and we move that game to 10:15 so that a football game could be finished.”
The game was supposed to tip at 10 p.m., but was pushed to 10:15 because the Miami (Ohio)-Ohio University football game ran late on ESPN2.
“Let us start our game,” Beilein said. “This is way out of whack when we move a game 15 minutes. It’s already at the wrong time — 10 p.m. on the east coast — and now, move it 15 more minutes? I love ESPN. They’re so good for us. They got that one wrong. You can’t do that to our student-athletes.
“Tell Spike Albrecht when he goes to his 9 o’cock class today that it was more important that we start that on time at 10 o’clock, rather than that. This is wrong and we’re going to fix it. Thank you very much.”
