They held the local rights to the contest, as the local ESPN Radio affiliate. But 101 also is the home of St. Louis University basketball, and because the Billikens were playing at the same time Thursday night opted to air the local team and join football afterward.

No problem, provided they move the big event to another station. But until prodded on Wednesday, WXOS management had no plans to send it elsewhere. Program director Jason Barrett said two other stations owned by its parent company were off-limits because their music formats are too precious to preempt for even four hours.

"If they asked me to play music for four hours I wouldn't do it,'' he said. "That's not who we are. ... They're very successful at what they do, I wouldn't even ask them to do that.''

But nobody at 101 had contacted a competitor about taking the game until word got out that the game wasn't going to air in a market that has seven stations broadcasting a significant amount of sports. A deal was struck late Wednesday with KTRS (550 AM) to carry it.

WXOS has made a lot of noise about being the place for sports fans and its relationship with ESPN, which brings the station a lot of marquee play-by-play events. But if 101 can't be counted on to deliver major events to the market in the rare cases it has programming conflicts, this laissez-faire attitude makes the bravado become mere chatter that's as weak as the signal of competitors it has chastised.