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.