Rumor has it that Fraschilla has requested to only do Texas Tech games so he can continue to impart his wealth of knowledge regarding Gate City, Virginia.
But for realz, Robbie Hummel needs to be doing more high profile games. He is a rising star in the analyst field, IMO.
Yup Robbie Hummel is definitely on my A-list for top announcers
Unfortunately, I think people who read this forum are always going to be frustrated at the lack of X/O breakdown during games or explanation of what’s happening. Most announcers are likely instructed by their bosses at the network to find a happy medium between human interest stories and breakdown because they want to attract the casual fan. Monday Night Football has been churning out announcers for years trying to find that right balance. Remember the Dennis Miller days…
I like Raftery even if he doesn’t get into the XO much. Dakich is tough because there are times when I find his breakdown insightful and times when I think he’s just trying to sound smart about the game even when he isn’t accurately capturing what is happening.
I agree with this. I’ve read a couple of articles lately about the TV approach. It sounds like the general theory is that the X and O fans don’t need to be sold on the game and that they already know what they’re watching. The more casual fans need to be entertained with less technical stories and anecdotes in order to be captured. I think they entirely miss the large cohort of dedicated fans who want to learn more about the X and O aspect of the game.
I can understand why network admins would take that stance. As a group, they probably have no idea how detailed the X and O aspect of the game really is, so they have no idea that this ignored cohort even exists. The assumption built into their stance is that fans who have followed the game for their entire lives know the X and O aspect inside and out. Of course, that’s far from the truth. It’s like the old baseball saying “Baseball is like church. Many attend but few understand”. That same saying applies to basketball, maybe even more so. Would the average network admin get that? No way.
Better PBP guys would really help. Ideally you have a truly skilled communicator able to control the flow and in doing so bring out the best in the color guy. I think Dakich would be even worse without having Mike Tirico doing that for him years back. In '13 and '14 you could hear Tirico guiding Dakich into position and steering him out of wrong turns. I remember some very awkward moments when Dakich was just going boom on the air and Tirico fixing it.
Most PBP guys are really more like hype men, IMO. They haven’t done their homework on the teams and players, but obviously have really worked on their phrases. Keith Jackson had his lines and they helped make him popular and memorable, and he was just naturally gifted and special, but he also was a skilled and professional broadcast journalist. I miss him so much. Not much of a football fan anymore, but if I’m gonna watch a football game these days, I’d rather rewatch a '97 game he called than something live.
I often use sports as examples in my dramatic writing classes and noticed that much of what a sports broadcast tries to do is establish what’s at stake. Why this is a big third down. How close a player is to breaking a historic record. End of game scenarios. What a player is dealing with off the court. Stakes in the moment and stakes more broadly.
That’s pretty cool! And obviously stakes should be clear. Do you take a position on the extent to which the audience knows or needs that?
I guess it’s fair to remind ourselves that we here, paying for content and talking about it on this forum every day, are not representative of the average viewer. Or at least that’s an assumption that could be made and that the networks definitely DO make. They’re looking to keep people engaged and know we already are.
Yeah, I think a Michigan broadcast will usually be lacking for those of us on here because we’ll know more about the team than a broadcaster covering dozens of teams and assuming a casual audience. And we’ll know the stakes and have so much built in due to our fandom. I’m always stuck by how a win probability chart for a Michigan game accurately reflects my anxiety level.
Also, it seems like even broadcasters have a hard time focusing when a game gets out of hand. Once the lead gets above 15, the heart-warming anecdotes come out…
The thing is, I could actually picture him saying this 
Well I do prefer that to having them pretend that the game is still competitive when they know that’s not at all convincing…
Yes, when the game is no longer competitive the stakes go away so you have to go to stakes beyond the game. Like MSU’s tourney streak. Or need to play hard while getting blown out so it doesn’t carry over to the next game.
It’s an extremely young team
Cunningham
Moncrieffe
Walker
All 3 are frosh averaging over 20mpg
Boone x2
Anderson
Are 3 sophs that get some good run
Likekele, Williams and Flavors are their only upperclass guys and only 2 of them are seniors. Likekele is a junior and should be back.
And then you have Stephen Bardo who tries to make insignificant plays, like a random turnover in the first half, into a huge momentum swinging game changing play. There is too much constant back and forth action in a basketball game to try and make single possessions have high stakes.
There is a way to be a good color commentator without the level of X/O or Analytics that most of us on this forum would prefer. Raftery is good that that for example. There’s also a way to bring in those more complex parts of the game and explain them in a way that educates even the casual fan. I think Hummel is pretty good at that.
What frustrates me most is either the over-exuberant cheerleader types that latch on to the wrong piece of information (Bardo, Vitale) or the know-it-all guys that try to explain X/O stuff but in a way that makes you wonder if they actually know what they’re talking about (Dakich).
For example - everyone on this board knows that dribbling your way into a long 2 point shot is bad basketball. How many times have you heard an announcer actually be critical of that? Shoot…I think you’re more likely to hear the announcer praise that shot than you are likely to hear them explain why it is an inefficient play.
My pet peeve with announcers is predictable; that they don’t know the rules, but often pretend that they do know the rules. In a vacuum, no big deal. But, the problem is that most fans are going to believe every word they hear, so the lack of knowledge proliferates. I’m not a huge Jay Bilas fan, but I give him a ton of credit for reading the rulebook. There’s a mountain of evidence that most announcers can’t be bothered to take the time to do that.
Once in a while, friends give us their courtside seat tickets. While sitting there, I take it as a duty to try to influence at least one call in favor of UM. I usually go with “Travel” on every borderline, awkward-looking move by the other team. Wondering what referee calls you think are most susceptible to crowd influence?
I’m not sure you can get a call made but you can try to get a makeup call.
I remember a game where Izzo was so far on the court the ref was boxing him out. The crowd screamed for at least five seconds and they didn’t call anything.
Zags on upset alert, down one at the half to KP #127 Pacific.
ESPN win probability has them at 84.6% which feels lower than I would have guessed trailing by a point.