Why halftime of the Auburn-Virginia Final Four game was extended
Virginia and Auburn kicked off the Final Four on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis, and provided fans with an extremely entertaining first half.
The two teams played extremely fast, flying through the first half in nearly 38 minutes. The end of the first half went so quickly, too, that CBS ended up missing expensive advertising time that was built into the broadcast.
Auburn and Virginia blew right through the under-four media timeout — one of four media timeouts built into each half of every televised college basketball game — giving fans nearly seven-straight minutes of basketball.
[Best Bracket Millionaire: Who’s going to win it all?]
Play ran very smoothly through the final four minutes of the game, too, never giving officials a chance to stop the game for the timeout. There were no fouls, no dead balls, nothing. The two teams simply played. Virginia’s Ty Jerome hit a pair of 3-pointers in the final four minutes, and Auburn finished with two layups and Anfernee McLemore hit a 3-pointer with just 40 seconds left to give the Tigers a 31-28 lead at the break.
We had a small miracle to end the half: the teams played straight through the under-four media timeout. No fouls, no dead balls. A lot of very tired players at the end of that half.
— Pat Forde (@YahooForde) April 6, 2019
While fans watching both at home and inside US Bank Stadium were certainly happy that the customary break was skipped, CBS wasn’t.
So to make up for the missed time, the NCAA extended halftime by two minutes.
Because we did not have the under-4 timeout in the first half, halftime will be extended by two minutes.
— David Worlock (@DavidWorlock) April 6, 2019
It’s unclear how much money CBS actually lost without the under-4 timeout, but it did take noticeably longer to get to the halftime show than normal — which is likely when CBS aired the advertisements that were missed during the first half.
CBS didn’t have any issues with missed commercials in the second half, and had stoppages at each scheduled media timeout. Virginia pulled ahead in the final second, thanks to three free throws from Kyle Guy, to edge Auburn 63-62 and advance to the national championship game on Monday night.
More from Yahoo Sports:
