meta-Jay Bilas

[doctorhook]

Jay,

I am a long time Duke fan and have no hidden agenda. I watched most if not all of your games at Duke, including ACC tourneys, and post season, including FF. This is not a flame, and I have great respect for your abilities, knowledge and Duke loyalty. My question is this: As an announcer and a Duke alum, how difficult is it to separate your Duke loyalty from your commentary? And more specifically, have there been times when you have made a conscious effort to tone down your Duke support/enthusiasm? In addition have you ever found yourself getting too enthusiastic in your support for another team ( UNC or other ) in part to be unbiased? Finally, do you review your own work ( watch tape as it were ) or are you too busy to do that? If you do that review, I have a specific question about a specific telecast. Thanks, Doc

[Exiled_Devil]

Dr. Hook -
I'm not sure if Jay comes around here much lately. the last time I saw him post was a year or two ago. Not sure if that means he isn't reading, but I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case you don' get a response.

Anyone know better than me?

Exiled
Of course, I keep harboring the idea that Jumbo is really Jay in disguise.

[Uncle Drew]

Yes I am a life long Duke fan and all that stuff yada, yada, yada. But a few years ago I found out you were the "good alien" in the movie I Come IN Peace. (I didn't recognize you.) How freakin' long did it take them to do the make up each day before a shoot? And you did a decent job in the movie, why'd you give up acting?

[Duke15304]

he is the best color guy in the game, i hope he takes over for packer soon, anyway, i think its a good thing he isnt bias, if you are going to do national games, you can be bias

[DukeDevilDeb]

I like him as well. But I was really floored the other day when two Florida supports and 4 UNC supporters were saying that Bilas was their favorite "Duke" announcer because he understood that Duke really wasn't so great and was committed to communicating that to the basketball world!

I do think that sometimes Jay is so busy being neutral that he forgets that Duke really is occasionally capable of doing something good!

[madscavenger]

Of course, I keep harboring the idea that Jumbo is really Jay in disguise.

Similar basketball IQs, but i don't believe Jay has ever used an elephant gun.

[Bostondevil]

I think Jay does a good job of remaining neutral unlike the rest of them at ESPN where the E stands for Evil. If you're a Carolina homer, go ahead, state your preferences, we don't care! (Do you think the commercial would have aired if they'd called Hubert or Stuart 'Tarheel Boy'?) I also suspect if Jay let a Duke bias show, they'd fire him. Dickie V gets a pass because, let's be honest, he loves everybody, not just Duke.

I've decided I'm very anti-ESPN lately. They are the biggest sports game in town and despite showing all our games, they are virulently anti-Duke, so I'm taking a break. Luckily the Sox are broadcast on a local cable channel and I can skip any games on ESPN this summer. Don't know what I'll do during basketball season, I might feel it's safe to go back in the water by then. Plus my kids might overrule me.

[ArkieDukie]

I actually found myself preferring to see our games on FoxSports.

[RelativeWays]

I think Jay does a good job of remaining neutral unlike the rest of them at ESPN where the E stands for Evil. If you're a Carolina homer, go ahead, state your preferences, we don't care! (Do you think the commercial would have aired if they'd called Hubert or Stuart 'Tarheel Boy'?) I also suspect if Jay let a Duke bias show, they'd fire him. Dickie V gets a pass because, let's be honest, he loves everybody, not just Duke.

I've decided I'm very anti-ESPN lately. They are the biggest sports game in town and despite showing all our games, they are virulently anti-Duke, so I'm taking a break. Luckily the Sox are broadcast on a local cable channel and I can skip any games on ESPN this summer. Don't know what I'll do during basketball season, I might feel it's safe to go back in the water by then. Plus my kids might overrule me.

I've never really seen this perceived bias from Stuart Scott. Whenever he does color for the Duke highlights, he's treated them to the same "BOOYAH" flair he does everyone else. Hubert Davis I think does a pretty excellent job and is similar to Jay in the respect of giving analysis from a neutral standpoint. The only ESPN college BB commentator I've felt seems to dislike Duke is Digger.

[Bluedog]

I've never really seen this perceived bias from Stuart Scott. Whenever he does color for the Duke highlights, he's treated them to the same "BOOYAH" flair he does everyone else. Hubert Davis I think does a pretty excellent job and is similar to Jay in the respect of giving analysis from a neutral standpoint. The only ESPN college BB commentator I've felt seems to dislike Duke is Digger.

And Doug Gottlieb, come on. That guy is the worst ever.

[calltheobvious]

I've never really seen this perceived bias from Stuart Scott. Whenever he does color for the Duke highlights, he's treated them to the same "BOOYAH" flair he does everyone else. Hubert Davis I think does a pretty excellent job and is similar to Jay in the respect of giving analysis from a neutral standpoint. The only ESPN college BB commentator I've felt seems to dislike Duke is Digger.

Question: What do you think the chances are that Stuart Scott didn't watch the Georgetown-UNC game? Near zero, I'd say.

When he did the highlights that night for SportsCenter, he used the word "airball" to describe the beautiful assist Green made to Ewing on the I'm-going-to-shoot-over-two-guys-no-I'm-not-I'm-going-to-give-my-teammate-a-lay-up play during their 2nd-half run to force OT.

Now, even if he didn't see the play live, do you think the PA who wrote his script would leave out the fact that the play was CLEARLY a pass? Nope. There's no way in hell that that was an innocent mistake.

Stuart Scott is petty and small. And if Bilas had short-changed Ellington like that, he'd be forced to write some sort of correction in his next espn.com piece.

[dukeENG2003]

And Doug Gottlieb, come on. That guy is the worst ever.

Doug Gottlieb is funny he's so bad. The only thing he hates more than Duke is Andy Katz. Anyone see their final four preview stuff together? He always tried to go out of his way to say that Andy was wrong. It was hilarious.

[doctorhook]

Stuart Scott usually is pretty direct and almost admits his bias. Doc

[DukeDevilsBB]

Stuart Scott is on of the worst when it comes to bias. Bilas is the man in my book...he calls it like it is. I did however think he went overboard on Hansbrough in that MSU game this yr.

[HK Dukie]

I really like Bilas, he actually knows what he is talking about, unlike most of announcers out there. I'm proud that such a well-spoken, intelligent, and humble person is representing Duke in such a prominent role.

That said, I do however share a slight sense of him being a bit harsh on Duke at times in the past few years, but honestly it is very minor (especially relative to 75% of the media out there). I also don't begrudge him at all, because sometimes it is necessary to be overly polite and concessionary to establish your credentials. He is just trying to build a career, and as long as he isn't overtly negative I think we should cut him some slack. I'm sure over time he will come back into the fold.

[Milbarge]

I try not to get too caught up in the hunt for bias; I think most of these folks just want a good story or some controversy that will drive ratings. So we get a lot of "Why do people love Duke?" and then when that gets old it's "Why do people hate Duke?" without much acknowledgment that they're the ones driving both the love and the hate for casual viewers (i.e., people who don't come into it with their minds already made up). I like Jay Bilas mainly because he's smart enough to know he'll never please everyone, so he doesn't try (unless someone accuses him of hating UCLA, whereupon he goes off).

Anyway, on Digger Phelps and whether he's a Duke-hater or not, I recall an anecdote from John Feinstein's book about the 1978 Duke team and its remarkable run to the national championship game. (It's called "Forever's Team.") Duke beat Notre Dame in the Final Four to advance, and Feinstein says that after that game, lots of other coaches made a point to thank Bill Foster for knocking the Irish out, or else they'd have never heard the end of Digger's crowing about playing for (and possibly winning) a title. It turned out to be Notre Dame's only Final Four appearance to date. I may be misremembering the details, but the gist of it is that Digger wasn't too well-liked within the coaching fraternity. I suppose it's possible that Phelps retains some anti-Duke feelings almost thirty years later. I think he's mainly just crotchety.

Obviously I can't verify Feinstein's anecdote, but it doesn't strike me as unbelievable given Digger's documented high self-regard. How many people remember when Digger announced, in all seriousness, that he was going to run for President, either in 2000 or 2004? Here's one link mentioning it:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...0/ai_n10181882
All I can say is, if a guy with Digger Phelps's experience thinks he's qualified to be President, goodness knows what he'd think he was qualified to do if he'd won that championship in 1978.

[Lulu]

Everyone is so harsh on Jay for not showing some kind of Duke bias... but I don't think he goes out of his way at all to be anti-Duke. I mean, I'll bet he's more often correct in what he says about the Duke teams than anyone on these boards. We might not like to hear it... but he's usually right in what he says.

Latest example for me was him saying that Duke may well have trouble with VCU. I sure hated to hear that... but then we up and lose anyway...

And so he thought Carolina would destroy us this year... well they did. Whether it was our D, our O, or certain players Jay almost always calls it right.

The only times I think Jay might have a problem are the years when Duke truly is great. You can't expect him to be the first on the bandwagon; he really would get fired, well, once upon a time, I'm starting to think ESPN is really learning to appreciate what they got there so maybe that's not true anymore.

When Jay critiques us I hate I hate to hear it but I think it's really only because I don't much like the truth in some cases and prefer to keep my biased thoughts.

And I echo whoever said they are proud to have him out there representing Duke. I try not to be biased in my feelings towards Bilas, but he's far and away the best at what he does imo; it's not even close.

[doctorhook]

Lulu,

Most sensible fans think Jay is great at what he does, and he is more accurate than most with his calls. I do not mind criticism of Duke by him or anybody else particularly in a year where the team had plenty of obvious weaknesses. No objective fan was suprised by our loss to VCU or UNC although I would not describe those losses as being "destroyed". I actually am more suprised by his excessively positive comments about UNC. I know the holes were better this year, and I know they were more talented, that was pretty apparent. I just am of the opinion that Jay gets too enthusiastic ( consciously or otherwise ) in an attempt to be non-biased towards Duke. The UNC/MSU game is the prime example. TH is a great player, he hustles, aggressive, etc, and we all know he would have helped us tremendously. However, if you listened to that game, I think Jay said over and over about how he did this/that. I am just as annoyed when an announcer harps on McRoberts passing ablility, JJ's shooting ( Mike Patrick ). Doc

[DUKIECB]

Looks like with Dickie V out of action, Jay will be filling in. Jay will be doing tonights game along with Dan Shulman and Doris Burke. In my opinion Jay is one of the better announcers out there right now. Nice to see him get the nod over the other ESPN candidates.

[Trinity84]

Looks like with Dickie V out of action, Jay will be filling in. Jay will be doing tonights game along with Dan Shulman and Doris Burke. In my opinion Jay is one of the better announcers out there right now. Nice to see him get the nod over the other ESPN candidates.

Gottlieb not available?