"... and the Orangemen go ZONE... with MAN-TO-MAN principles!"
"... and the Orangemen go ZONE... with MAN-TO-MAN principles!"
My favorite tandem is Raftery and Verne Lundquist. The two seem to work together a great deal and have fun covering a game. It's good to have a crew work together, discuss the game, and remember that it's about playing hard and having fun.
Verne might be the most underrated play-by-play guy in the business. Whatever you give him -- football, hoops, The Masters -- he delivers. He's got a great voice, he does his homework, he follows the game. I've got to give CBS props -- for the most part, they assemble excellent crews for the Tourney, considering they need eight different pairs for the first two rounds.
I really like Raf -- and I agree with earlier posts about Verne L. I also like the G-man.
Most of the play-by-play and color folk for NCAA MBB are pretty lame. Jay Bilas annoys me, but we can't discount his intelligence and insight. Bobby Knight has added an interesting dynamic to the mix.
Too bad they don't add any of the woman folk to the mix. There are some TERRIFIC women working those games!!
Send it in Jerome!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sqSwZgpOad8
This might deserve a separate string, but I have been impressed with Jay Bilas's work during games. I've liked him as a commentator too, but I don't remember hearing him work a game before this week.
Coach Knight has been a breath of fresh air. I can't believe I saw him wearing a Miami Vice-pink sweater this morning. Does he have a closet full of sweaters in every color?
Raftery is brilliant. Fun, insightful, treats the fans as if they are intelligent and not watching their first college basketball game. I'd say he doesn't overuse "the kiss", so it's not annoying, but a nice trademark.
I think one of the main things that separates Raftery from other knowledgeable commentators is that he treats basketball like it is a game that is played for fun not a matter of life and death.
sagegrouse
I briefly met Bill Raftery about ten years ago in Georgetown. At the time, I was in graduate school there and his daughter, I believe, was an undergrad.
I was at 'The Tombs' one Saturday evening (he had called a G'Town game earlier that day) and the two Rafterys came to the bar area (if you've been to 'The Tombs', you know how small it is). The crowd applauded him as he entered and he took the time to walk around and shake everyone's hand and introduce himself.
He was very cordial and chatted basketball with most of the folks. As nice as he seems on television (echo the above comment someone made about him calling the game as if it is meant to be fun), he was even more so in the brief time I spoke with him.
Raftery combines Packer's knowledge of the game, Vitale's enthusiasm for the game, and his own brand of humor to be the most fun color commentator on NCAA Games.
And Gus Johnson is just the consummate pro. This year during the Super Bowl, the Knicks were playing a home game that Gus was announcing. A timeout took place with about a minute to go in the Super Bowl, and the Garden showed the last minute of the Super Bowl on the big screen. After Gus made it clear that it didn't look like the Basketball game would resume untll the end of the Super Bowl, he sequed seemlessly into doing play-by-play on the Super Bowl for the last minute of that game...Just a great pro who understood what was needed at the moment.
My wife and I call him the "growler"...listen to him next time and see if you don't agree; especially after a nice play... After awhile it will begin to get on your nerves.
If Raf would just, once, complete a sentence. I guess it's the pedant in me, but I find him hard to listen to because he speaks mostly in sentence fragments. OTOH, he does know ball, and is a refreshing throwback to the days when people in sports liked each other well enough to have a beer together.
I like all the announcers and color men that CBS uses for the NCAAT and agree with Jumbo that they have done a nice job putting together their announcing teams. Enberg and Lundquist are my favorite announcers while Raferty and Spanarkel are excellent color men. A color man on the rise, IMO, is ESPN's Steve Bardo. He has a nice mix of enthusiasim and knowledge. He remembers the game from 25 years ago while relating to the youngsters playing the game today. I got a kick watching a game the other day (NIT?) when a player made an old fashioned finger roll on a drive and Bardo remarked that he could join his 40-and-over team with that move.
gw67
I love Raftery. Or Raferty as some pronounce it.
During one of the tourney games last week he commented on a hand-check, perimeter foul that he thought shouldn't have been called.
"Nickel-dimer. McCrory's bargain basement."
That had me howling!