2024-25 Announcer Thread

CrazyNotCrazie said:
He did this at least twice - I noted it in the chat. Haters only hear his negativity towards Duke and conveniently ignore anything positive he might say. Selective hearing. Perhaps I have selective hearing in that all I hear are those whining about Bilas and it drives me nuts. He is far from perfect. He is over-exposed by ESPN so he has become a walking cliche. He makes mistakes. But he does not deserve all of the wrath he gets here.
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A few seasons ago I took a scientific approach to this issue, marking down everytime he said something favorable to Duke and favorable to the other team, and also when he said something disparaging about us and about the opponent. I posted the results here.

Surprisingly, overall it was pretty balanced, and, if anything, favored us. What wasn't surprising was the reception my data received here. A fair number of people flat-out refused to believe me and/or said I counted incorrectly or attributed the comments incorrectly.

The bias of hearing the negative and not hearing the positive is very strong, and it is resistant to facts for some people.
 
rsvman said:
A few seasons ago I took a scientific approach to this issue, marking down everytime he said something favorable to Duke and favorable to the other team, and also when he said something disparaging about us and about the opponent. I posted the results here.

Surprisingly, overall it was pretty balanced, and, if anything, favored us. What wasn't surprising was the reception my data received here. A fair number of people flat-out refused to believe me and/or said I counted incorrectly or attributed the comments incorrectly.

The bias of hearing the negative and not hearing the positive is very strong, and it is resistant to facts for some people.
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So apparently you are scolding many of us here for being biased in our opinion of Bilas' objectivity. You claim that your evaluation was the definitive viewpoint and all others are invalid.

I read your post back then and gave you my opinion and I still think your evalaution is hogwash. You had a hypothesis and you bent your viewpoint to match your objective. Its classic academic bias and hubris.

Bilas has a reason for overcompensating or masking his Duke allegiance. Thats good enough for me. Your opinion is no better than anyone else'.
 
I suppose we should be proud that Jay Bilas is the #1 analyst in college hoops. He is intelligent and articulate, reflecting basic intelligence, two Duke degrees (including a JD), and time in the courtroom. He is a loyal Dukie -- his daughter came to Duke; he is close to the program and to Coach K. He gave a pep talk to the team just a few weeks ago.

People here seem to react negatively to his broadcasts, usually because of accusations that he "leans into the wind" to avoid appearing pro-Duke. I don't hear it -- but perhaps I'm tone deaf. I do note that a few years ago he spoke in a stilted manner, kinda like a 1930s radio announcer. I thought he was trying to appeal to the adolescent crowd. Thank heavens he has moved away from that shtick.

Anyway, I am proud of Jay, and I'd rather have a Dukie as lead network analyst than someone from Carolina, Kentucky, Wake or Maryland. It fits with our leadership of USA Basketball, the NBA (Adam Silver is also chair of the Duke Trustees) and many NBA teams.

Why am I posting this? It's cheaper than paying a shrink, maybe?
 
Jay is an excellent announcer IMO. He knows the game and I believe he calls what he sees. I think the “Bilas is biased against us” is largely a function of Duke fans not being objective, which is both normal and expected. But outside of our bubble, people actually find things positive to say about our rivals and to note that we sometimes do indeed foul.

Same with JWill. It is not surprising that basketball players, unlike us, respect UNC and their programs or perhaps see the game more objectively than partisan fans do.

If you see enough games called by most announcers you get annoyed by some of the repetitive themes. That is true of anyone. But that is more a viewer problem IMO, not a broadcaster problem.

But I realize others differ. C’est la vie. Not trying to convince anyone differently.
 
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DoubleBlue said:
So apparently you are scolding many of us here for being biased in our opinion of Bilas' objectivity. You claim that your evaluation was the definitive viewpoint and all others are invalid.

I read your post back then and gave you my opinion and I still think your evalaution is hogwash. You had a hypothesis and you bent your viewpoint to match your objective. Its classic academic bias and hubris.

Bilas has a reason for overcompensating or masking his Duke allegiance. Thats good enough for me. Your opinion is no better than anyone else'.
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You seem to have forgotten a very important detail; namely, that I, too, thought he was constantly bashing us. I set out to prove that he was biased AGAINST us. Therefore, your suggestion of my bias is unfounded. Rather than hubris, I was actually humbled to find out that I had been wrong.

You don't have to believe my analysis, but it is unfair to suggest that I used my bias to alter the outcome in favor of a preconceived notion when I held no such notion going into the exercise. And while I agree that my opinion is no better than anyone else's, the exercise wasn't expressing an opinion; it was simply reporting what was actually said during the broadcast.

I guess I would have had to type out each of his statements verbatim in order to be convincing.
 
OldPhiKap said:
Jay is an excellent announcer IMO. He knows the game and I believe he calls what he sees. I think the “Bilas is biased against us” is largely a function of Duke fans not being objective, which is both normal and expected. But outside of our bubble, people actually find things positive to say about our rivals and to note that we sometimes do indeed foul.

Same with JWill. It is not surprising that basketball players, unlike us, respect UNC and their programs or perhaps see the game more objectively than partisan fans do.

If you see enough games called by most announcers you get annoyed by some of the repetitive themes. That is true of anyone. But that is more a viewer problem IMO, not a broadcaster problem.

But I realize others differ. C’est la vie. Not trying to convince anyone differently.
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Yeah, what's amusing is that the fans of whatever team is playing Duke likely feel that Bilas is biased against their team in his color commentary as well. So, basically, everyone watching the game likely believes that Bilas is biased against their team in his commentary.

Jay is a very knowledgeable analyst who brings insightful commentary to every game. Does that mean he's perfect? By no means. His analysis of the flagrant 1 was ridiculous, and I agree with others who have pointed out that it felt like Jay just didn't want to back down from his original position and admit he was incorrect. As a lawyer he should certainly understand that a rule is a rule, and you can't justify your way around it. As an analyst who has done commentary on countless games where said rule has been applied (and a basketball fan who has surely seen said rule applied at both the college and NBA level countless times), it just makes Jay look silly in that particular moment suggesting somehow that in this one instance the rule should be applied differently. But that doesn't necessarily detract from whatever other insights he brings through his commentary on the game.

Shulman is the guy in this pairing who I absolutely cannot stand and is the sole reason why I sometimes turn the volume down for games featuring these two.
 
rsvman said:
You seem to have forgotten a very important detail; namely, that I, too, thought he was constantly bashing us. I set out to prove that he was biased AGAINST us. Therefore, your suggestion of my bias is unfounded. Rather than hubris, I was actually humbled to find out that I had been wrong.
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I think perhaps you are not factoring in that IMO not all instances carry equal weight. One or two egregious instances can cancel out all the other acceptable ones, at least for me anyway. YMMV.
 
gillmic said:
But Schulman told Bilas, perhaps multiple times, that there was contact to the head. Bilas shrugged it off as the defender trying to go for the ball; that may have been his intent, but his execution resulted in him hitting the head of a defenseless player driving the hoop with two feet off the ground. Bilas went on to comment something to the extent of how it’s more difficult for James to land (one foot, two feet, blah blah doesn’t matter). He was wrong. It’s be so much better if he would admit when wrong instead of trying to double down and find some technicality to justify his initial position.
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Bilas also misunderstood the rule saying "james still has one free throw to take also", implying a basket, one free throw, then two more for flagrant foul.
 
Papa John said:
Yeah, what's amusing is that the fans of whatever team is playing Duke likely feel that Bilas is biased against their team in his color commentary as well. So, basically, everyone watching the game likely believes that Bilas is biased against their team in his commentary.

Jay is a very knowledgeable analyst who brings insightful commentary to every game. Does that mean he's perfect? By no means. His analysis of the flagrant 1 was ridiculous, and I agree with others who have pointed out that it felt like Jay just didn't want to back down from his original position and admit he was incorrect. As a lawyer he should certainly understand that a rule is a rule, and you can't justify your way around it. As an analyst who has done commentary on countless games where said rule has been applied (and a basketball fan who has surely seen said rule applied at both the college and NBA level countless times), it just makes Jay look silly in that particular moment suggesting somehow that in this one instance the rule should be applied differently. But that doesn't necessarily detract from whatever other insights he brings through his commentary on the game.

Shulman is the guy in this pairing who I absolutely cannot stand and is the sole reason why I sometimes turn the volume down for games featuring these two.
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I liked both of them.id like to see Jay and Doris Burke do one of Dukes big games .
 
Matches said:
They’ve been doing NBA games together on ESPN.

Also: Brad Daugherty is doing color for Cleveland Cavs games. He’s the only UNC guy I’ve ever enjoyed doing commentary. Had no idea he called bball games anymore, so hearing him was a pleasant surprise.
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I always liked Daugherty too. Especially, when he referenced his wife, Weezie!!! Good to hear he is back to basketball.
 
Reminds me of a saying one of my old colleagues used to recite when walking out of a meeting w a bloviator: "Commonly wrong, but never in doubt."
My dad used to call it something else: "Diarrhea of the mouth" 💩👄
 
SkyBrickey said:
Yeah I'm not a fan of this Crispin guy. Harder for me to tune out than Alexander, Bilas or others.
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I do like Crispin, though prefer it when he’s paired with Kevin Brown. As it happens, I did tune the announcers out, not deliberately but simply because I was doing too many things at once and so wasn’t really listening to them, thinking more my own bad thoughts for the first 3/4 of the game.
 
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