A Review of the First Weekend of Coverage of the NCAA Tournament

Now that the first weekend of play in the NCAA Tournament is over, I want to give a quickie review of the announcing crews from both TV and radio. Having March Madness on Demand, Mega March Madness and Sirius Satellite Radio, I was able to watch and listen to much of the coverage.

Before I continue, I forgot to add “Aftermath, the Station Fire Five Years Later” to my Viewing Picks tonight. I lost a friend to the fire and another five of my friends got out before things really got out of control. I don’t ask you for anything, but I do ask you this once to donate what you can ($5, $10 or $20) to the Station Family Fund which tries to help the victims’ families and the survivors with medical expenses. I’m not going to rehash what happened in the fire, but if you can donate, please do so. If you can’t and I know times are tough, I understand, but if you’re in a position to do so, please give. Thanks. And I want to thank Dee Snider of Twisted Sister for all of his fundraising efforts.

Ok. Let’s talk about some of the coverage.

For the most part, CBS is in a thankless position. When a game gets out of hand, it has to decide which market to switch and which market not to switch. However, some of those decisions took a bit too long to make. When CBS was airing Wisconsin-Kansas State in the Providence market, a game that the Badgers had mostly in hand, the network stayed with the broadcast until 53 seconds left in the game and finally switched over to Xavier-Purdue which was a tighter contest. On Friday, Providence had the start of North Carolina-Mount St. Mary’s which became a blowout at the opening tip and remained with the game for much of the first half being switched to other action. I know the decisions are not easy, but if a game gets out of hand, a switch has to be made. Granted, a game like today’s Davidson-Georgetown game was out of hand early, then became exciting as Stephen Curry got his shooting stroke in order and there is no way to predict a comeback, but CBS has to get better at switching out of blowouts.

As far as announcing crews were concerned, the worst announcer by far was Craig Bolerjack. I wrote a brief blurb on him Thursday night as he was fracturing the Belmont-Duke game. He and Bob Wenzel were overgushing throughout the broadcast and I felt that they were each going to have a heart attack.

So here are my grades on the TV side:

Host – Greg Gumbel – A
Studio Analysts – Clark Kellogg – A/Seth Davis – D

Jim Nantz/Billy Packer – B
Verne Lundquist/Bill Raftery – B
Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel – B
Gus Johnson/Len Elmore – B
Carter Blackburn/Jay Bilas – B
Kevin Harlan/Dan Bonner – B minus
Dick Enberg/Jay Bilas – C
Tim Brando/Mike Gminski – C minus
Craig Bolerjack/Bob Wenzel – F

I thought the best debut was Carter Blackburn whom I really did not want to like, but I thought he did rather well in the afternoon session at Anaheim. As I mentioned in my original post on Thursday, I thought that if CBS decided to bring him in full-time next season, he would be an excellent replacement over Bolerjack.

On the radio side, I came in with high expectations after hearing Wayne Larrivee do so well last season with Larry Farmer. This season, he was with Kevin Grevey and during the San Diego-UConn overtime game, there were times when he miscalled shots and also called the winning basket, “going for the tie!” Not good. Larrivee is usually a solid announcer, but that is a bad miscall.

Dave Sims remains one of the best play-by-play men on radio. He can call the NFL, college basketball, baseball, he’s very solid. Teamed with Bill Frieder, they made a very good team. It’s too bad they won’t be working in the Sweet 16 because I thought they meshed very well.

Overall grades for the NCAA Westwood One Radio Network:

Host – Tommy Tighe – F (he talks too fast and relies too much on puns)
Host – Steve Torre – B (he should be the main host, but only works on Sirius Satellite Radio)

Dave Sims/Bill Frieder – A
Spencer Ross/Kyle Macy – A minus (Spencer is a pro)
Kevin Kugler/Reid Gettys – B
Mark Champion/Glenn Consor – B
Joey Wahler/Pete Gillen – B minus
Wayne Larrivee/Kevin Grevey – C
Ted Robinson/Mike Montgomery & Brad Sham/John Thompson – Incomplete (didn’t hear enough to grade them)

I’ll have more my complete awards after the Final Four, but this is it for now.