Bill Walton is clearly a smart guy. But...
He is now in bizarro world.
Does he realize that they are playing basketball out there?
He's outstanding tonight. I'm losing it time and again.
"The only thing more meaningless than a halftime score of a college basketball game is the final score of an NBA exhibition game." - Walton
Pure genius. Easily top 2 most meaningless things in universe.
- Chillin
Just watched Xavier-Cincinnati. Did not realize Len Elmore has moved to Fox Sports.
Been enjoying Cory Alexander's analysis during today's game. He offers up actual useful information. (Even when it's a blowout.)
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Arnie, Chillin, and yours truly takes us up to 6.
And Mark Titus makes 7, although he's a little backhanded about it - "most announcers aren't very good, so enjoy someone who's entertaining."
Walton is the best because he's funny
Underneath that hippy-dippy Grateful Red shtick is an old-school hoops purist when he cares to show it. I caught him doing the UCLA - Tech game in China after the little shoplifting incident, and Walton went on the most blistering rant I've ever heard from him about the stupidity of the UCLA players and the disgrace and embarrassment they caused.
I've texted the young Turks: "Professor Walton's seminar is starting; attendance mandatory."
As for preparation, I gen up a couple of Bill Walton Bingo cards and hang on for the ride. http://billwaltonbingo.com/
Bill Walton on fire last night doing the Utah - BYU game with Roxy Bernstein. Roxy seems like he's having more fun and does a better job keeping up with Grateful Red on his rhetorical misadventures than Dave Pasch.
Quote of the night, on overcoming his stuttering: "Learning how to speak is my greatest accomplishment and your worst nightmare."
Stayed up late on Saturday to see USC at Arizona. Walton and Pasch were grumpy and sniping at each other all night like two sisters-in-law who don't like each other (don't ask me how I know). Big Red might need a new straight man.
Fox has been pairing the legendary Gus Johnson with Jimmy Jackson. They had the Duke / St John's game, and they usually do the best Big East game during the weekend. On Saturday, they had Butler-Villanova. Jackson is truly horrible, adds absolutely nothing, and takes a long time to say it, leaving Gus less air to work. No matter how bad a ref misses a call, this almost always leads to a Jackson coaching lecture on what the player should have done differently.
Say goodbye to Mike Patrick tonight in Cameron.
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/...-long-run-espn
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
He had been at ESPN for a very long time, and surely had his moments of greatness. But in more recent years, maybe even the last decade or so, Patrick was borderline impossible to listen to. His pairing with Len Elmore for basketball games produced some of the most error-filled broadcasts I can ever remember.
I haven't read the words "is retiring" in any of the Mike Patrick articles, so it sounds like ESPN is kicking him out the door, but with honors. I doubt he's done announcing.
Likely one of those cost saving moves that they have been making lately.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
Agree about the errors. Age was not kind to him announcing-wise (his "joke" about Britney Spears in Georgia-Alabama game lives in infamy). But I always got the sense he loved his job announcing the ACC, and I seem to recall he had good historical references. I think you can tell some of the other guys do it for the paycheck and the sense of being famous. I thought Patrick just loved calling ACC hoops. I wish him well.
From his bio on Wikipedia:
I noticed he seemed different when he returned. Maybe there was a later vascular episode.Since 1982, Patrick has worked for ESPN, where he is best known for his role as play-by-play announcer on the network's Sunday Night Football telecasts, with Paul Maguire and Joe Theismann from 1987–2005.[3] Patrick was briefly replaced in 2004 by Pat Summerall, while he recovered from heart bypass surgery.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013