This afternoon I watched the Championship game of the Missouri Valley Conference. Creighton bested Southern Illinois to win an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, which will begin a week from this upcomming Thursday.
Gus Johnson was doing the play-by-play for CBS Sports. I have a good friend who, like me, recoginzes this guy for just how good he is. There seem to be two schools of philosophy when it comes to sports announcing (play-by-play discipline)
- The Pat Summeral School of Minimalism:
This method of "less is more" and allowinng the sheer visuals and crowd noise to allow the atmosphere to dictate the mood of the telecast.
-The Chris Berman School of Alliteration:
This method is to make every single play worthy of explaination points and superlatives. Also, every player needs to have either a nickname or a gimmick.
Gus Johnson, although can display methods apparent in the two previous methods, is able to craft out a unique grip of the game. I think Gus Johnson is whole-heartedly thrilled to be sitting courtside of the games he announces. More importantly, he is able to make that feeling contagious.
Next Sunday the NCAA Bracket will be unveiled. Here are my non-performance wishes:
MU seeded 4th in the St. Louis Region
MU slated to play Friday afternoon
MU to play its first and second games on a court not painted "uniquely"
MU to have its games annouced by Gus Johnson.
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On a separate, side, note:
Contact me if you would like more info on my Bracket Pool. If you don't know what that means, odds are you are not interested.
(song of the week, that track by Arctic Monkeys that starts out, "Put on your dancing shoes...")
