"Flops" (Donny Marshall)

[devil84]

Ok so when my bud D84 is upset with the commentating, then it is darn well a legitimate gripe!

I caught Friday's game at my nieces house during my families Thanksgiving get together. There was a lot of noise in the room with all the people, so those of us watching the game caught little to none of the commentary. Sounds like that was a blessing in disguise, after reading all of the commentary in the threads. I assume it is safe to state that ol Donny said the word "Flop" more than a couple of times during the game? And did the guy really refer to Minnesota as "We"?

At any rate, it has been amazing in recent years at how different the commentary is during Duke games vs games that do not involve Duke. With Vitale being the obvious exception, the commentary is often built around Duke's weaknesses, "Duke getting all the calls", and what the other team needs to do to win the game. Also, if there is a controversial call that goes Duke's way, they will show the replay from every angle imaginable, yet if it goes against Duke, there is often no replay shown at all. That has happened numerous times, which by itself is jut kind of bizarre.

Yeah, it was bad!

I'm not that upset with no mention of MP3's injury with respect to the injuries for the other teams. MP3 hasn't played yet this season, so MP3's absence hasn't affected practice and game prep to the degree that VCU and Louisville were affected losing a key player much more recently. However, MP3's injury is listed on PAGE ONE in the roster: "Marshall Plumlee (6-11, 235, R-Fr.) F - - - sidelined with a left foot injury." The notes don't say when he'll be back (and they shouldn't). But if the commentator wants to sound intelligent when discussing a team's depth, perhaps the commentator might try to figure out how long the 6'11" with the same last name as the star and an NBA player is out for (clearly "sidelined" is not "out for the year"). Again, we must realize that this information was hidden all the way at the bottom of page one! And the only pictures on the pages were the logos for Duke and its opponent (the first page format is the same for all three games). I can see why Donny might have had a problem with finding that information. [/sarcasm]

I'm not happy with his constant harping on the flops (and geez, it's pretty clear he doesn't even know what a flop is!), but he did change his tune in the third game. But the rest of his "analysis" left a lot to be desired. But instead of being upset about his announcing, I've decided that his announcing may not be a bad thing. First, if there's anyone who actually knows something about Duke Basketball, he's just shown the world that he doesn't do the most basic research, which is reading THE FIRST PAGE of the game notes. Pitiable, really. Secondly, he's really only annoying Duke fans. So what does it matter to the rest of the world that we "don't have any depth?" Well, after using our best players to play a brutal schedule where we beat four top teams in five games in 11 days with another top team in four days later, maybe not having any depth is a liability since, well, we've "only" won all of the games we've played so far. After the Ohio State game (where we might want more depth, but we will have our Sixth Man), we are coming up to a number of December games, and perhaps we'll see a few more players that Donny didn't notice and a little development might take place. But, shhhhh, don't tell our our opponents' fans that we could be even better with more bench down the road. Let's keep that our little secret.

It'd be interesting to know if the other schools disliked his "analysis" as much as we did. Clearly he was against Duke; it was terribly unprofessional for him to say "we" regarding ANY team there. But it was obvious that he didn't do the research needed to be a good "analyst." Was he as bad with the "facts" for the other schools? Perhaps they didn't notice what he said about Duke because they were still rolling their eyes and screaming at the TV because he screwed up something about their team.

That doesn't excuse the producers and editors that don't show the replays of the calls that benefit Duke's opponent -- thankfully the last two games were on NBC Sports so I could use my DVR and rewind to make my own replays. I couldn't do that in the first game watching online at my brother's house with a ton of other family there. But, y'know, when Duke stops being singled out for whatever it is that makes us mad, it means Duke isn't relevant anymore. Embrace it. Thankfully we don't have to deal with Donny for any other games this year! At least we had a reprieve from Elmore, Vitale, etc.

[MChambers]

I thought Marshall was quite a bit more balanced in the Louisville game. For example, when Rasheed was called for a very questionable blocking foul on Smith, Marshall openly questioned the call. He also said that Kelly's fourth foul was a bad call. He said something on Kelly's fifth foul, too, and I think he thought it was a bad call, but what he said was fairly incoherent, so it was hard to tell.

He also described Rasheed as one of the two or three best freshman in the country and Mason as a lottery pick.

And I'm pretty sure Marshall's use of "flop" was particularly egregious Saturday night. I was not able to see Friday night's game.

[Merlindevildog91]

but Donny Marshall was so bad, on Saturday night I dropped an "F" bomb. Directed at him. In front of my mother.

I did think he was slightly better on Saturday night than he had been earlier, but that's similar to saying botulism is better than E. coli.. He did sort of say that Ryan's fifth foul shouldn't have been called, but it was in such a convoluted manner it was difficult to understand.

[MChambers]

I thought Marshall was quite a bit more balanced in the Louisville game. For example, when Rasheed was called for a very questionable blocking foul on Smith, Marshall openly questioned the call. He also said that Kelly's fourth foul was a bad call. He said something on Kelly's fifth foul, too, and I think he thought it was a bad call, but what he said was fairly incoherent, so it was hard to tell.

He also described Rasheed as one of the two or three best freshman in the country and Mason as a lottery pick.

And I'm pretty sure Marshall's use of "flop" was particularly egregious Saturday night. I was not able to see Friday night's game.

Edit: I meant his use of "flop" was particularly egregious Friday night. I couldn't see Thursday's game.

[watzone]

Rumor has it that a Duke twitter site included some tags in comments which got the attention of NBC Sports when other fans chimed in. I was told he used flop 17 times but I never counted them. But I was outraged by the constant use as were others and it took away from the broadcast. Anyhow, twitter works and objectively he was over the top and some knew it and drove the point home to NBC Sports. He did not utter "flop," one time that i heard after that.