Posted April 5, 2010    

•Jim Nantz

•Kevin Harlan

•Brent Musburger

•Bob Knight

•Mars Blackmon

Time to Review College Broadcasters 

With college basketball ending tonight, it’s time to review the broadcasters who have both soothed and annoyed in 2010, and even further back.  

The boys behind the microphones are important to my enjoyment of the game. Sometimes they’re better than the action on the TV screen, while other moments they’re so annoying I hit the mute button on the remote control with the force of a Shaquille O’Neal slam dunk. 

Here are my summaries of several basketball broadcasters who, welcome or not, have found their ways into our homes: 

I start with Greg Gumbel who is actually a studio host for CBS on the Road to the Final Four.  Gumbel is a personable fella, a smooth professional who like a good host at a dinner party delivers a few affable questions to his basketball panel of Greg Anthony (he's good) and Seth Davis (he's better).  Gumbel’s trademark phrase is, “We’ll get you out to that game while others of you will see (fill in the blank).”  This must be wonderful training if Gumbel ever decides to work at a railroad station announcing departing trains to various destinations.  

In a mediocre pairing, Jim Nantz, the play-by-play guy, teams with color man Clark Kellogg. The two form CBS’s No. 1 college basketball broadcast team and couldn’t be more different.  Nantz has a calm, flawless delivery and if he’s ever uttered a dumb word on the air I missed it.  A couple of years ago Kellogg replaced Billy Packer as Nantz’s partner.  That’s like having Randy Foye take over for Dwyane Wade as the Miami Heat's franchise player.  Kellogg talks too much, isn’t that interesting and has a voice more like what you expect to find in an office than at a broadcast table.  Note to Kellogg: occasionally let the game describe itself.

 

Puhleeze, Don’t Tell Us What's Obvious 

The Upper Midwest had a similar color man awhile back.  To protect his name, I call him Lars.  Like Kellogg, Lars was a master of the obvious.  With the home team behind by a point late in the game, he told the broadcast audience the local boys needed a basket. That was the tactical insight for viewers.  Ugh.  

“Oh my!”  Dick Enberg, 75, has made this his last year calling NCAA tournament games.  Back in the 1980s he offered play-by-play with color guys Billy Packer and Al McGuire.  There’s never been a better broadcast trio on college basketball, with Packer’s smarts and McGuire’s charm carrying the team.  Their arguments are long remembered.

Our basketball intelligence was insulted a few years ago during the collapse of the Dan Monson coaching era.  The Gophers were playing in a place called the Milk House on the Disney campus in Florida.  Public complaints about Monson had been fast and furious for a long while but Monson was still employed by the Gophers.  It was at the Milk House that ESPN’s Jimmy Dykes, a southern lad who might not even be able to find Williams Arena on a map, pronounced that perhaps Gophers fans should have less than high expectations because he deemed Minnesota to have limited basketball resources.  

Kevin Harlan got his start here as the Timberwolves first radio play-by-play man.  I loved him then and still do.  Guys who are exuberant can cause me to switch channels but Harlan knows how far to push the enthusiasm.  The result is he can make the most ordinary games and individual plays sound interesting.   

Harlan, with his color guy Dan Bonner, could even do a play-by-play on me in the kitchen making breakfast that might hold the attention of a national audience.  “Dan, there’s something special about the way Shama pulls back on that refrigerator door and reaches inside!  He does it in a way that sets him apart from others.  Your thoughts?” 

Mention the Big Ten Conference and the first play-by-play guy to write about is Brent Musburger. He’s 70 now and been doing Big Ten football and basketball on ABC and ESPN for many years.  His voice is still filled with genuine enthusiasm.  

Musburger offers up a mix of comfy dialogue like that found in a Wyoming cowboy with the intellectualism that represents his Northwestern University journalism degree.  He is passionate about the Big Ten without being biased toward individual teams.  He’ll refer to something that’s going on “up in Madison or over in Columbus” and it makes a listener want to jump in the car and head in those directions. 

 

'General' Knight Best on Strategy

Musburger’s extensive knowledge of the Big Ten is no doubt one of the reasons his color man, Bob Knight, seems comfortable working with him.  “The General,” 69, left the coaching bench in 2008 but he performs like he’s been working games at the broadcast table his whole life.  

Knight explains both basketball subtleties and strategies more effectively than perhaps any color man today.  The guy knows what he’s talking about and how to impart that information to listeners in ways they can understand.  The result is a much more informative and enjoyable broadcast.   

What distinguishes Knight too is that he tells the truth.  Too many coaches turned broadcasters practice political correctness better than they do reporting.  And to the dismay of critics, Knight hasn’t dropped any f-bombs on the air.   

Way back when Knight was winning championships at Indiana, Bill Raftery was doing color commentary on national broadcasts.   He seems like the same Raf to me now as he was then.  Gushing too much about too little, and offering that cliché about a shot that sends me scrambling for the mute button: “A kiss off the glass.” 

No list of color guys is complete without Dick Vitale.  Vitale, 70, is the Jack LaLanne of college hoops.  Vitale is an energized, fun loving, wordsmithing, non-stop pitch man for the collegiate game.  He’s multi-generational, welcome at a frat party or a nursing home.  Love Dickie V, or hate him, we all know of him.  

Some folks think the fastest rising profile in college basketball broadcasting belongs to Gus Johnson.  He’s smooth, articulate, prepared and passionate about the game.

What grabs me, too, is the guy looks like Mike Jordan’s pal, Mars Blackmon.  Check out Gus on camera and see that face covered by big glasses.  Looks like Mars to me. Ya think?

 

Dan Monson