NCAA web site does streaming video right

Last night I watched the Wisconsin Badgers take on the Cal State Fullerton Titans in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. What was interesting was that there wasn’t a single television on in my house. Instead, I watched the entire game on my laptop.

Before I say anything more, rest assured that if the game had been on television, I would have watched it on my television. Unfortunately my local CBS affiliate did not choose the game I wanted to watch as the game they decided to show.

Back to the laptop. Thanks to a new feature on the NCAA web site, you can now watch any game you want, live, on your computer. And the best part? No registering. No VIP passes. Just point, click and watch.

I will admit, however, that much like my experience trying to find a tournament bracket on the Big Ten web site, I had trouble locating the link on the NCAA web site that you need to click to begin watching the games. But I eventually noticed the nice “WATCH LIVE GAMES” graphic, clicked it and was on my way.

The video loaded fast and looked remarkably good. I even pushed the limits a bit and used the full screen option which literally made me feel like I was watching television on my laptop. Pretty cool!

If I had to come up with a negative, the only thing that disrupted my viewing experience was an occassional popup that asked me to click OK if I was still watching the game. I guess because of my techie background, I didn’t let this bother me since I knew that the web site was only doing this to cut down on wasted bandwidth for people who start streaming a game and then walk away from their computer or start working on other tasks.

Now, if only someone could guarantee that the Wisconsin Badgers will keep winning their games so I can continue watching them.