One thing we've learned from the first four days of the NCAA men's basketball tournament is that CBS Sports doesn't have enough decent announcers to go around.
Oh, they've got Jim Nantz, Sean McDonough and Billy Packer, but the pickings get thin quickly after that. We have better announcers here in Utah - Steve Brown, Mike Smith, David James, Dave Fox - than what CBS is foisting off on us.Of course, it may not be just that CBS is stretched thin - it may be that the network is no judge of talent. What else could explain the presence of the utterly awful George Raveling as one of CBS's top guys?
It's not just that Raveling is pompous and obnoxious. It's not just that his grammar stinks. It's not just he's a Dick Vitale wannabe, spouting nonsense left and right.
It's his arrogance that makes him unbearable. During Duke's loss to Providence on Sunday, Raveling actually had the gall to tell viewers that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was a smart guy because he had come to the same conclusion as the brilliant George Raveling.
What viewers don't need to hear from is a legend in his own mind.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE: It was nice - if rather surprising - to see CBS's Jim Nantz on KSL's "SportsBeat Saturday" over the weekend.
There was certainly a nice local angle to the interview, what with Nantz - the former KSL sportscaster - doing the play-by-play for the Utah-UNCC game the following day. But the fact is that KSL is no longer a CBS affiliate, and the interview essentially promoted a game on rival KUTV-Ch. 2.
How mature - if rather surprising - of KSL to even do the Nantz interview.
CUT IT OUT: Has new KSTU-Ch. 13 sports guy James Dean unpacked yet?
If he doesn't stop with cheesy junk like screaming "Keith Van Slam" and the umpteen repetitions of himself, let's hope not.
It's like watching Joe Piscopo on an old "Saturday Night Live" doing a parody of a bad sportscaster.
GIMME A BREAK: If Ute fans want to be upset because CBS pre-empted a few minutes of the Utah-Navy game for an update on President Clinton's knee surgery, fine. Just be sure you're aiming your ire in the right direction - it was CBS's decision, not Ch. 2's.
As for the caller who claimed that it was some sort of plot by Clinton against the citizens of Utah - a la the Grand Staircase-Escalanate National Monument - oh, please. Like the president planned to injure his knee badly enough to require surgery and planned the timing of the surgery so the press conference would come in the middle of Utah's NCAA tournament game.
Seems a bit far-fetched, don't you think?
There's a reason these people are called fanatics.