Basketball television production lacking

I watched both the Thunder-Nuggets and OU-Texas A&M on Wednesday night, continuing a season-long trend. I’ve probably watched more basketball this season than ever before.

I think there is a shortage of quality production people in sports people.

The Thunder generally produces a quality broadcast, except its producer — the guy pushing the buttons for which camera is on the tube — consistently forgets what his job is. On many a Thunder broadcast, you miss a play, because a camera is focused on a closeup of a player trotting back downcourt or is focused on the crowd.

That’s unforgivable. Don’t switch away from the action unless you’re sure the action is routine. Walking the ball upcourt or general waiting for a substitution or something.

Otherwise, the Thunder’s only other sin is unorthodox angles, generally from court level, which are interesting for a couple of seconds but of no benefit for sustained action. Show the quirky angle, then get back to the ballgame.

The OU-A&M broadcast was plagued by scoreboard problems. The score implanted on the screen consistently was wrong and outdated. I don’t know if it was human error or technological problems, but you couldn’t trust the score you saw. That’s not a problem with the Thunder broadcasts, which are as good as I’ve ever seen at updating the score. The new score is registered virtually every time the ball drops through the net.

The OU-A&M game, broadcast by the Big 12 network, also was curiously void of other Big 12 scores. No updates from Stillwater or Austin or Boulder. Very strange in this day and age.

Here’s an example of how bad graphics can put announcers in a bad light. A&M’s Bryan Davis went to the bench with his fourth foul late in the game, but the graphic said Davis had fouled out. Announcers Bob Carpenter and Reid Gettys had been talking about A&M’s foul trouble but had moved on to another subject when the graphic came out and didn’t correct the mistake. Gettys later mentioned that A&M needed to get Davis back in, and when he sat for quite a while longer, I figured Gettys was confused. Not so. Davis did return. But the graphic made him look bad.