Announcer Babble

[A Pennsylvania Coach]

Stacey Dales-Schuman is terrible. However, I will say being an analyst, especially one of those talking heads in the studio not at the game, must be really hard. I'm pretty close with the Penn State program so I think I have a pretty good understanding on what they do and how they try to do it. Schuman came on after the game going on and on about how they'll have to go inside against UConn, and she thinks PSU needs more balance offensively. Penn State has four 1,000-point scorers (only 9th D1 team to have them simultaneously) and all four are guards! Their three post players include two freshmen and a junior who is playing at about 75% health. She doesn't know anything about the team, but she is second-guessing a coach with 600 career wins, and one of only four coaches to win two WBCA Coach of the Year awards. So this makes me realize that most of the time, when one of these people speaks, they are really just filling their 20 seconds with whatever comes to mind and not really providing me any insight.

[Adam]

Dales-Schuman was bugging me after watching Minnesota's first round game last week; calling a particular foul call "horrible" and game changing. Actually, all she did was agree with Reece Davis, who was furious about the call. I saw the play, and thought it was no more than a questionable call. Hardly horrible, and not worthy of their vitriol. Stacy didn't seem to want to get into it, though, and merely told Reece that she agreed with him. Still, her insight seems lacking.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Snaqwells
Dales-Schuman was bugging me after watching Minnesota's first round game last week; calling a particular foul call "horrible" and game changing. Actually, all she did was agree with Reece Davis, who was furious about the call. I saw the play, and thought it was no more than a questionable call. Hardly horrible, and not worthy of their vitriol. Stacy didn't seem to want to get into it, though, and merely told Reece that she agreed with him. Still, her insight seems lacking.

Okay, I take it back about D-S being positive. I haven't seen many of the games yet this year. I think we can all agree on "dim".

[Hawks Coach]

If listening to him for two halves isn't enough already, Raftery drove me over the edge last night right about the time where Deng charges and he characterizes it as a "shame." In his world, big name school screws up, its a shame. If Xavier commits same foul, it's great defense by a well-coached program.

He also defended Duke players on a couple of fouls, one of which he accused the ref of anticipating the foul. When you watch the reply, the Xavier player got whacked in the head and arm on the follow-through. Does Raftery notice this even after two angles show the same thing - NO!!!

Guess he was anticipating the replay rather than letting it develop and making the right call

[Adam]

Originally posted by rainmaker

Okay, I take it back about D-S being positive. I haven't seen many of the games yet this year. I think we can all agree on "dim".

Dim? Perhaps. It's obvious she got hired for her pretty face rather than for in depth analysis. Either that, or she's just too shy to express herself. Either way, she's wasting a seat, IMO.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Snaqwells
It's obvious she got hired for her pretty face rather than for in depth analysis.

Or maybe she majored in broadcasting in college, or in Sports Journalism, or some such?

[iamaref]

Are you guys CRAZY. WALTON is awesome... Do you really think he in fact... believes the rubbish he spews. He knows what he is doing. It's entertainment.. remember.. and he is a "character" in the whole makeup. Honestly I love.. when some guy gets hacked.. with no call.. Walton "That's a fooooooooooulllll". It's comical so it makes it entertaining. NBC exec's aren't stupid.. if you think they are.. your probably the nieve one.

[Hawks Coach]

There are plenty of women's basketball players out there, not sure why they picked Dales Schuman other than rainmakers suggestion. Looks obviously matter (just as they do for male hosts - face it), but ESPN generally has pretty high standards in terms of people's capacity to speak intelligently. If you watched any of the Dream Job stuff, it was interesting to see the types of things they look at when choosing an anchor. Their analysts have to have some of those skills, such as providing concise and insightful analysis.

Despite their effort to put quality heads on the screen, they seem to be stuggling to find good women's bball people, and have for the past couple of years. I have always felt that this was a huge weakness in their studio lineup (compared with any other sport they cover). By comparison, they have had very strong women's announcers for years in tennis, women who can cover men's and women's tennis. It's a shame with all the women's players they have that they can't find any that are more competent on camera.

[Hawks Coach]

Originally posted by iamaref
Are you guys CRAZY. WALTON is awesome... Do you really think he in fact... believes the rubbish he spews. He knows what he is doing. It's entertainment.. remember.. and he is a "character" in the whole makeup. Honestly I love.. when some guy gets hacked.. with no call.. Walton "That's a fooooooooooulllll". It's comical so it makes it entertaining. NBC exec's aren't stupid.. if you think they are.. your probably the nieve one.

He is generally uninformative and spews rubbish that we may recognize as that, but fans take to be gospel. Not a positivie influence on the game. By comparison, the NFL and its broadcasters strive to have people who know what they are talking about, especially on the A crews, and the last attempt at pure entertainment ended with Dennis Miller on MNF.

[just another ref]

Originally posted by iamaref
WALTON is awesome... He knows what he is doing. It's entertainment..

Some are more easily entertained than others.

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by Snaqwells

Dim? Perhaps. It's obvious she got hired for her pretty face rather than for in depth analysis. Either that, or she's just too shy to express herself. Either way, she's wasting a seat, IMO.

I freely admit that I have no problem with muting ESPN and just watching Stacy Dales-Schuman.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Hawks Coach
Despite their effort to put quality heads on the screen, they seem to be stuggling to find good women's bball people, and have for the past couple of years. I have always felt that this was a huge weakness in their studio lineup (compared with any other sport they cover). By comparison, they have had very strong women's announcers for years in tennis, women who can cover men's and women's tennis. It's a shame with all the women's players they have that they can't find any that are more competent on camera.

Perhaps it's a self-perpetuating problem. Players think, "Yuch, I don't want to be an announcer -- they're all so dumb" and so the intelligent ones go a different direction.

Looks are important, but decent make-up and a fancy hair-do will work for most women -- just as they do for most men. I mean, Walton was most definitely not good-looking. And Packer is .... never mind.

[canuckrefguy]

For you Packer fans out there...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...=murphy/040329

[Nevadaref]

Right now on ESPN, Mike Patrick is insisting that the HORN is what takes precedence. He says the heirarchy is horn, lights, clock at zero.
The question is whether or not Turasi's 3 at the buzzer to end the first half in the UConn/PSU game should count.

Well, my understanding different.

[FHSUref]

Originally posted by Nevadaref
Right now on ESPN, Mike Patrick is insisting that the HORN is what takes precedence. He says the heirarchy is horn, lights, clock at zero.
The question is whether or not Turasi's 3 at the buzzer to end the first half in the UConn/PSU game should count.

Well, my understanding different.

And to then have to listen to Reece Davis, Dales-Schuman and Fortner talk at the half-time report about how the official lost the game for Baylor was killing me. Fortner asked the Baylor coach, "What did the official say to you?" To which she replied, "He wouldn't come over to talk to me"......well duh!!!! Anyone have a match and a little bit of gasoline for that fire? Who cares, the official doesn't have to say anything. He made the call so they need to leave it alone.

Then Fortner wanted to know if the Baylor coach thought that the call was made because it was Tenneessee and they are a powerhouse. C'mon, where did they find Fortner? She is garbage.