NCAA Tournament Comes First, Channel 2 Assures

College basketball fans need not fret.

KCBS-TV Channel 2 does not plan to ditch the CBS network’s coverage of the NCAA tournament, which starts this morning, in favor of extended coverage of the O. J. Simpson double murder trial.

“We are committed to carrying the tournament in its entirety,” said Sybil MacDonald, the station’s director of media relations. “We’re the only ones running it, and we’re going with that.

Channel 2 carried live coverage of the opening statements in the Simpson trial, but coverage since then has been sporadic, MacDonald said. On Wednesday, the station was going with its regular lineup of network soap operas and game shows.

“We’ve really basically decided to cover the bulk of the trial within the context of our news (shows),” she said. “However, we do have the ability to interrupt coverage for any major announcement. But within the context of the NCAA tournament, we don’t anticipate doing this.”