DALLAS – With Texas leading North Carolina Asheville, 22-8, midway through the first quarter on Friday, CBS analyst Dan Bonner offered up this not so bon mot about the trailing team:
“Their record is very deceptive,” he said of the 15-16 Bulldogs, citing their losses to the likes of Kansas and Oklahoma and Michigan State and Connecticut.
He did not mention Bulldogs losses to Radford (10-20), Elon (12-15), and Liberty (14-15).
Hey, take away Texas’ losses to No. 1 Arizona and Kansas, and the Longhorns record would look better, too.
This is not to take Bonner to task. He was only doing his job. No need to denigrate the NCAA Tournament’s 64th and lowest seed.
Just about every analyst working the tournament for CBS would have said the same thing about lowly North Carolina Asheville, which at least made a tournament that had no room for North Carolina Chapel Hill.
It’s as if they all studied the same manual.
Two days into the tournament and already its easy to predict what the announcers will be saying Saturday and Sunday as well as next week and the week after that.
Here’s a primer:
When the announcers aren’t calling the players “kids,” they’ll be referring to them as “student-athletes” an oxymoron if ever there was one for basketball playing kids in the month of March.
Coaches will be treated with reverence and credited with everything good about their programs. Coaches will be praised for successful halftime adjustments. Coaches who are adjusted out of the tournament will be praised for successful seasons that included wins over Radford, Elon and Liberty.
All coaches are worth their weight in gold with the exception of Utah’s stocky Rick Majerus, who is almost worth his weight in gold. Every coach is a cross between Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein and General Patton.
Announcers will never mention the three-letter word “NBA.” If David Stern wants recognition for his league, he’ll have to pay for a commercial. Instead, there will be speculation if a player can succeed “on the next level.”
There are no “stupid shots,” “bad passes” or “blown calls” by referees. There are “tough shots,” “tough passes” and “tough calls.”
Graduation rates won’t ever be mentioned unless one of the competing schools is the Ivy League champ or Duke.
Bracket pools won’t ever be mentioned even if everyone watching at home has one on the coffee table next to the sofa.
No one ever mentions all those empty seats in the early round games.
Announcers always mention that a coach has “taken three schools to the tournament.” They never mention that the coach left the first two on probation.
The most repeated phrase in the waning seconds of a game is, “We’ll be right back after this timeout on the court.”
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