COLLEGE Basketball fans weren’t happy when ESPN swapped the Baylor-Houston broadcast to another game.
The network elected to broadcast an NBA game and cut into the middle of the NCAA college basketball game.
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On Monday night, with less than 12 minutes to go in the second half, ESPN’s Kevin Connors and Seth Greenberg abruptly interrupted the Bears-Cougars broadcast.
The pair sent it to Los Angeles at around 10:40 pm Eastern night before the tip-off of the Lakers-Utah Jazz game.
The game was highly anticipated as it was Luka Doncic’s first game with LeBron James and the Lakers.
The Baylor-Houston matchup was then moved to ESPNU and the Lakers game was shown on ESPN.
It’s safe to say college basketball fans were in fits of rage over the game being kicked to the curb from the main channel.
“Why does ESPN both airing college basketball,” one wrote.
“ESPN just kicked an active college basketball game of ESPN to watch LA traffic,” another commented.
“So disrespectful to college ball which is better anyways,” a third added.
Houston was up 53-43 at the time of the swap and would go on to claim the 76-65 victory.
Still, the Lakers game was nationally televised and had top priority for a reason.
It was the five-time All-NBA First-Team guard Doncic’s first game in the purple and gold since he was traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Lakers.
Doncic had missed the first few games as a Laker due to a calf injury.
ESPN was also hit with criticism over their broadcasting schedule over the weekend.
The network moved its schedule to broadcast Luka’s first game with the Lakers on Saturday, but he wasn’t able to return from his injury.
And LeBron sat out the newly nationally televised game.
The Lakers would beat the Indiana Pacers, but the network awkwardly forced to move the beginning of Dick Vitale’s return to the broadcast booth at the Duke-Clemson game to the frustration of college basketball fans.
Doncic ended up playing just 20 minutes in his Lakers debut due to a minutes limit.
He dropped 14 points while helping the squad to a dominant 132-113 win over the Utah Jazz.
