Want to watch Xinjiang – Liaoning Game 5 tonight? Too bad.

Yes, it’s true, Xirelijiang. You’ve been dumped by CCTV for Chinese soccer.

Game 5′s don’t come often during the CBA playoffs. In fact, before last year, they didn’t come at all. Since the league has switched to a best-of-five format for the first and semi-final rounds in 2005, there had been exactly zero series that went the distance. That changed last season, when Xinjiang – DongGuan gave us on in the first round, while Shanxi and Beijing gave us another in the semis.

So when Liaoning beat Xinjiang on Wednesday to force a third Game 5 in the last two years, fans were admittedly fired up. Especially when the three preceding first-round series all ended in sweeps by the higher seeded teams.

But that excitement has turned into… what??? Because when you turn on CCTV-5 tonight, instead of the game, you’ll see the opening round of the Chinese Super League, according to HuPu.com.No, that’s not a misprint. Not basketball. Soccer.

The fine folks at CCTV do have somewhat of a soul, though. They’ll be re-broadcasting the game at 10:30pm once the two teams are done playing. If you couldn’t tell, we’re being sarcastic.

If this news indeed holds to be true, the conspiracy theorists will be out in full force over this one (we’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with disagree). And if those conspiracies have some truth to them… well I guess it’d be business as usual. But this is an absolute abomination. Heck, if the programming directors at CCTV aren’t  too busy stamping out any potential interest for Chinese professional basketball, why not  drown some kittens, too? Repeat: An abomination.

I have nothing more to say.