I know he's been doing NASCAR for ESPN, but I tuned in the end of the Penn State v. Northwestern game tonight and I'd swear I heard Brad Daugherty's voice.
Can anyone confirm/deny my suspicion?
I really hope he's calling college basketball again. I loved his work in Gone in 54 Seconds.
Last edited by mph; 01-02-2008 at 11:05 PM. Reason: grammar
False alarm. Just saw a breakdown of the game on College Gamenight and the announcer in question is Stephen Bardo. Well that was unnecessarily disappointing.
He's been doing car commercials and buying up land in the Asheville area. Other than that, I haven't seen him on a tv set in ages.
I wish he'd go back to basketball. He's much better at basketball than NASCAR. T
he only positive with his NASCAR commentary is that unlike other commentators he does bring things into perspective as a car owner (though I don't think he is fielding at teams at this time), where as other commentators are retired drivers or crew chiefs.
Daugherty definitely does NASCAR but he also does spot work for ESPN College Basketball. I know he did some games for ESPN last year and one might've even been a Duke game, though I'm not 100% sure on that.
But Steven Bardo's voice is indeed strikingly similar to Daugherty's so the voice you heard that particular day was probably Bardo's.
I don't miss Daugherty as a basketball announcer much at all. I know, you have to expect this from a UNC guy, but whenever he did a Duke game you could practically hear the gnashing of his teeth any time he had to admit that a Duke player did something well or Duke itself had done something well or the program was a good one. For him, Duke never gets the benefit of the doubt, and never gets any slack at all. (FWIW I don't see Bilas acting that way vis-a-vis UNC)
And I certainly don't miss Daugherty's inability to use the word "ball." Every time he says the whole word "basketball" instead of sometimes, just sometimes, saying "ball." "He got his hand on the basketball." "So-and-so drives the basketball . . ." "They're not moving the basketball . . ." Drove me nuts.
It was definitely Bardo as I watched the game. Plus, I just saw him talking on ESPN just a minute ago before getting on this site. The voice similarity really is astounding though as I thought the same thing the first few times I heard him commentate on ESPN. He is an Illinois guy from way back as evidenced by the fact that he picked the Illini over OSU in tonight's game. Considering that the Illini lost to Tenn St on Saturday I would call that a gutsy move even for an alumnus of Illinois. But then again the Buckeyes gave up 83 to Maryland Baltimore County demonstrating an inability or unwillingness to defend the 3 point arc.