The second most discussed item related to Monday’s National Basketball Championship game had nothing to do with what happened on the floor of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis — it was related to the awful new production of “One Shining Moment” with Jennifer Hudson.
If you didn’t know that Jennifer Hudson was going to sing the new version before Monday night, then you sure as hell knew it after Monday night. CBS wasted significant time during the song to feature images of Hudson singing as opposed to key footage from this year’s NCAA Tournament. WOOO HOOOO!!! Just what every college basketball fan in America wants to see at midnight is a music video of an American Idol contest!!!! As this blog politely pointed out:
General consensus last night was that “One Shining Moment†left out some key moments from the tourney. Ohio beating Georgetown, Jordan Crawford’s three from deeeeep in the Xavier/Kansas State game and definitely some others. Also, while Jennifer Hudson is nice and all, definitely looked more like a music video for her than a recap of one of the best NCAA Tourneys to date.
More valuable is always a link to The Dagger. They’ve got a lot of good commentary below the video (that we refuse to embed).
The greatest NCAA tournament ever ended with the worst rendition of “One Shining Moment”.
CBS was so pleased with getting a name like Jennifer Hudson to sing its annual tournament-ending song that the network basically let her take it over. Hudson shrilly shouted the lyrics and was bizarrely shown multiple times during the montage, making “OSM” more about her than the cheesy celebration of the NCAA tournament that we all know and love.
Here’s the clip. You may want to turn down your volume, lest you want Hudson’s high-pitched wailing to call all the dogs in your immediate vicinity:
[snip]
Vocal criticism aside, the montage was too much Hudson, not enough John Wall and Evan Turner. The two top players in college basketball didn’t make a single appearance in the montage. Nor did huge, near-buzzer beaters by Jordan Crawford or Ishmael Smith. But seven shots of Jennifer Hudson? “One Shining Moment” had those.
Viewers were angered about both the cuts to Hudson in the studio and the song itself. Many took to Twitter and Facebok to complain. Even CBS acknowledged the backlash, publishing a story about the criticism on its news Web site.
I’ve never thought about it in this manner, but there is something particularly pure and innocent about ‘One Shining Moment’ in this day and age of ‘superstars’, reality TV and an incessant focus on selfish individuals. The montage of emotion-filled clips of individuals working together on a common goal is the epitomizes the team concept and has always been a powerful and almost spiritual experienced for college basketball fans.
I always thought that there was something particularly noble in the fact that no one school or individual dominated the clips. But, not anymore. And, unfortunately, the dominating force isn’t even a college basketball player — it is Jennifer Hudson?!
As the Dagger said,
Give me more basketball. Give me more highlights. Give me literal interpretations of the song’s cheesy lyrics. When “the ball is tipped” introduction is sung, show me a ball being tipped to the smooth strains of Teddy Pendergrass. That’s “One Shining Moment,” dammit. Not this trainwreck we saw Monday night.
Have no fear, in today’s internet age there are ways to recreate reality. Which, is exactly what someone has done with the following Luther Vandross version of their own One Shining Moment that we thought you may enjoy.
One final note — with SO MUCH happening in the world of college sports right now with coaching carousels, etc then we just want to keep our message forums front and center as a place for you to share and obtain ‘real-time’ news and conversation. Click here for forums. Thanks!
