WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[lmitzel]

North Park PA announcer Kevin Shepke typically doesn't do roll call when NCC makes a line change during an NCC @ NPU contest. Since he doubles as the live stats operator he doesn't have the time to even try to do it. As for me as the play-by-play broadcaster, I typically don't individually identify each new quintet, either, when NPU hosts NCC. I simply inform the viewers of the line change. On most occasions there just isn't enough time to visually scan the uniform numbers and come up with the new names, and the occurrence in which there usually is time to announce the new Cardinals -- an NPU timeout -- is when I'm either reading ad copy or, if it's late in the game and the score is close, I'm giving a game-situation reset, which consists of my reciting the score, time, timeouts remaining for both teams, team fouls for both teams, and the list of players with three or more personal fouls.

The actual pace of a game against North Central is not that hard for me to negotiate as a PBP announcer, because it's still not as quick and as incident-heavy as a men's game. The hard part is keeping the players straight, and even with that I'm stretching to call it "the hard part". It usually takes me a couple of minutes of calling a game before I have the numbers and names of opposing players down cold to the point where I'm no longer looking at the handout to remind myself. It takes a bit longer to do that when the Cardinals are the opponents, but that's really not a big deal. Nobody who's watching the broadcast can see me holding my clipboard with the handout on it, anyway.

Which is why I commend both of you for recognizing that it's easier to either just mention that there's a line change, or like Wheaton did this past Wednesday, just let them come out on the floor and not even acknowledge the change. We've also got a cheat sheet for at home, which helps our stat crew, but I don't know if they do the same on the road.

I acknowledge the difficulty keeping players straight. North Central has 20 players on the roster and, while many of them are familiar faces, I'm still adjusting to the newcomers a little bit. I usually need a quarter or two before I can get pretty much everyone on the visiting team down without needing to cross check my list. You use whatever you need to to do your job, clipboard or otherwise.

The struggle is real. 

[Gregory Sager]

My beef with PA announcers and PBP broadcasters doesn't involve identifying players per se, whether the opposing team's style makes it difficult or not. It's pronouncing their names properly. On previous occasions Chuck and Rog and other long-time d3boards.com posters have seen me fulminate against announcers and broadcasters who botch the names of opposing players, but every season I continue to hear people behind the mic who are not doing their homework. It's not just students who mess it up, either. In fact, in most of the cases it's not students; sometimes it's even professional radio announcers who (repeatedly) screw up the names because they obviously don't know how to pronounce them properly.

I just don't get it. How hard is it to approach an assistant coach from the other team during the shootaround and ask him or her if he or she will correct you as you read off the names on that team's roster? It takes all of two minutes, and it saves you the trouble of: a) not sounding like an amateur who doesn't know what he's doing; and b) irritating listeners, whether they're in the crowd or they're listening via radio or computer.

F'rinstance, although I'm usually pretty good at guessing pronunciations, on Saturday night I was corrected on the pronunciation of two Carroll starters prior to the men's game by a CU assistant coach when I went over the Pioneers' roster with him during the shootaround. I shudder to think how I would've sounded to Carroll listeners had I gone the entire game butchering the names of those two very important players.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Especially when it's a conference game and the player is a three year starter and the announcers are still getting it wrong.  That's a minimum of five games to get the name correct.

[Gregory Sager]

Yep. This past week I heard a veteran radio commentator repeatedly mess up the name of a visiting team's senior who, although not starting, was a starter in the past and has been in the rotation ever since arriving on campus four years ago. Fortunately, his PBP partner pronounced the name properly and the commentator eventually took the hint in the second half and started following his partner's lead in terms of pronouncing that player's name.

[iwumichigander]

Yep. This past week I heard a veteran radio commentator repeatedly mess up the name of a visiting team's senior who, although not starting, was a starter in the past and has been in the rotation ever since arriving on campus four years ago. Fortunately, his PBP partner pronounced the name properly and the commentator eventually took the hint in the second half and started following his partner's lead in terms of pronouncing that player's name.

it would seem the SID would have a phonetic list of players to hand out before the game to press and broadcasters, or have it available on the school or conference website.

[Gregory Sager]

Phonetic lists certainly help, and you sometimes see them offered for football (although even in that sport they're the exception to the rule). But over the course of my nine seasons of broadcasting games I can count on one hand all of the phonetic lists I've seen for D3 basketball, either on the school website or on the handout, and that goes for both men and women. And I've never seen a conference provide a phonetic list.

[RogK]

Congrats to Olivia Mayer, new CCIW Player of the Week.

[lmitzel]

Phonetic lists certainly help, and you sometimes see them offered for football (although even in that sport they're the exception to the rule). But over the course of my nine seasons of broadcasting games I can count on one hand all of the phonetic lists I've seen for D3 basketball, either on the school website or on the handout, and that goes for both men and women. And I've never seen a conference provide a phonetic list.

I've seen a handful. Most of the CCIW schools don't have any, so usually I end up watching one of their games leading up to their trip to Naperville. Worst case scenario I ask pregame. I don't want to sound like an idiot, though I have had parents come by to correct me a time or two. I apologize and fix it, but if I can do the work beforehand to avoid it I will.

[Gregory Sager]

I can and will correct when I get the chance. I won't let on which school it was (it wasn't NCC), but at halftime of a CCIW women's basketball game within the past few years in which North Park was the visiting team I went over to the table and, as unobtrusively as I could, corrected the PA guy on the pronunciation of three NPU players' names. He was grateful.

I appreciate getting help, too, as long as it's done in the right manner and spirit. This fall the NPU women's soccer team was hosting Illinois Tech, and neither the IIT official roster (in NCAA soccer, both men and women, each team has to submit a copy of their official roster to the scorekeeper) nor the handout had a #23 listed for the Scarlet Hawks. When, to my surprise, a #23 came onto the pitch for Illinois Tech at the start of the match, I was stuck with having to identify her by her number (for which I apologized to the viewers). Shortly thereafter, a Scarlet Hawks fan who was apparently listening to my call via his smartphone walked up to the open window of the press box and informed me sotto voce that the Hawk who usually wore #2 was wearing #23 that day. That was something that the IIT coach had failed to tell me when I went over pronunciations with him before the match (just as he had failed to note the change when submitting his copies of the official roster to the ref, the NPU coach, and the press box). I wish that I'd had the chance to thank the person who came up to the press box window, because, as I said, I appreciated his assistance.

[joehakes]

Greg,

You were just spoiled by having such a spectacular PA guy when you were a young pup in college.

[Gregory Sager]

Joe, I'd hate to hear that you had to spent the holidays with your arm in a sling due to patting yourself on the back too vigorously.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 88
Blackburn 52

Liz Rehberger: 21 pts, 6 stls, 4:2 a:to
Hannah Rehfeldt: 15 pts
Elise Estelle: 13 pts
Alicia Arnold: 11 pts, 3 stls
Amani Davis: 5 stls, 9:1 a:to
Shaylee Sloan: 3 stls

NPU picked up a sloppy win over a really bad Beavers squad tonight. The Vikings clanked one wide-open trey attempt after another, missing eight of their first nine from downtown as Blackburn actually led, 20-19, a minute deep into the second quarter. Then the Vikings seemed to figure out that they could jump the perimeter passing lanes at will, and went on a steal spree. NPU embarked upon a 24-0 run loaded with fast-break layups, Blackburn didn't score again until the final minute of the half, and the rout was on.

All in all, it was a nice little finals week diversion, as all of the reserves got plenty of playing time. Nobody played more than 22 minutes tonight for NPU, as twelve of the fourteen Vikings saw double-digit minutes, making it a worthwhile exercise, I suppose, in giving the youngsters lots of experience.

[RogK]

My suspicion is that several of Blackburn's players may not have planned to play hoops, but answered their school's call for assistance. They are rather short in the area of height. Stole that line from Monty Python's Flying Circus, I think.
To add to their woe, two of them appeared to suffer knee injuries. A quick recovery is wished to each.

[Gregory Sager]

What they lack in height they more than make up for in girth, however. Blackburn actually outrebounded NPU by three, in large part because the ample frames of the Beavers displaced so much space under the basket that they effectively boxed out the Vikings without even trying very hard to do so. Of course, this was matched by a corresponding lack of quickness on the part of this zaftig Beavers squad, but their coach did a nice job of shuttling players in and out every couple of minutes to keep them from getting too winded.

[RogK]

On that subject of North Park rebounding, the three best rebounders through 8 games are Shaylee Sloan at 27 per 100 minutes, along with Clarissa Ramos and Brie Lippert at about 23 per 100 min. A couple of others have higher rates, but sample sizes (minutes) are too small.
When conference play resumes, North Park will need some rebounding "by committee" to augment what the aforementioned trio will provide. Fortunately for NP,  several of their guards are above average and will help.