On Saturday, college basketball fans around the country settled in for a quality Saturday afternoon matchup between No. 1 Auburn and No. 17 Kentucky—a game deemed important enough to make a rare (for college basketball) sojourn onto ABC.
However, coverage did not go according to plan.
Midway through the second half of the Tigers' eventual 94–78 win, ABC abruptly cut away from the game—bouncing from a different college game to NHL coverage. The switch—attributed at the time to "technical difficulties"—took fans by surprise.
Once the game was over, a Wildcats spokesperson shared a statement with Ryan Black of the (Louisville) Courier Journal outlining what happened.
"The broadcast production team experienced technical difficulties during the second half of the game," they said. "There was a fire affecting the ABC generator equipment powering their production truck. It was quickly extinguished, but it caused the broadcast feed to lose power."
For Kentucky fans subjected to Auburn guard Miles Kelly's nine three-pointers, missing the end of the game may have been a relief.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Generator Fire Forces Abrupt End to ABC Coverage of Auburn-Kentucky Game.
