2021 Final Four

[camosfan]

I didn't think the card was warranted. Soft second yellow in a major moment.

Also, yes semifinals day is a long day but we've done this for years and have never had an issue. At all levels announcers try to have some fun with the call during lulls in the action and get serious when a serious moment is happening. How we handle it is no different than a Buck/Aikman.

At least Dave gets some semblance of training for this annual broadcasting equivalent to an Iron Man triathalon when he does the d3hoops.com basketball tournament with Pat and Gordon and Ryan in Vegas every December. I don't know how you manage to hang in there for eight hours' worth of commentary, Ira.

Fans are comparing coverage to the pros, maybe not consciously, but  if we stop for a minute and think about the vast difference in resource allocation between ventures , we may be able to adjust our expectations.

[irapthor]

Greg, I actually have done the past 3 D3hoops classics in Vegas...missing this year unfortunately due to a bowl game conflict...but those are LONGGGG days. I actually announce professional men's volleyball and those are 12-14 hour days, so actually used to those long days.

To the others, Dave and I do read the constructive feedback, so thank you. These events are tough. Certainly don't want to be a homer towards any team. I spend hours speaking to each coach 1:1 to get further background on the teams. It's absolutely a challenging process for a one-weekend a year commitment, versus guys who their full time job is to announce and they get to spend every moment committed only to a broadcast.

Either way, please tune in today and enjoy the games...my predictions are TCNJ and Amherst winning, but think both will be one-goal games. The margins between all of the teams playing this weekend were so razor thin.

[irapthor]

A few odds and ends from yesterday and last couple of pages...

Most importantly, beginning with Amherst...We saw the whole complicated/controversial package.  A great program doing whatever necessary to get back to the Final, relentless and unforgiving, determined to get the win with whatever that would mean, the yelling and histrionics [the writhing and rolls on the ground must be something they practice and I hesitate to say this because looked the he really did get hurt with a ball to the eye area late in the game but ten Cate is the best writher/roller I've seen with Cubbedu taking second place honors last night... and let me say I'd want both on my team as ten Cate who is not built like an Aroh battles and plays to exhaustion like no other and I've been saying Cubbedu could be a super-talented X factor and wondered why he doesn't start going back to the Tufts game], the ref having to chastise coach and bench, the hoofing and never ending flip throws into the box that may be ugly but puts enormous pressure on the other team with errors likely to happen over 90 or 110 minutes, rarely losing headers in their defensive third, taking a really superb Chicago team out of its game which isn't a shock but I honestly thought the Maroons would handle better, glimmers of just how good some of their players are, etc, etc.  D4 insisted early in the season that Amherst was the 2nd best team in D3 (we know who he thinks is 1st)...I tended to agree that they had been underrated early and I rated them very highly early in our little mock polls, but then after seeing them live vs Tufts I thought I had overrated them, and then obviously thereafter underrated them.  I will readily eat crow and if they win tonight I will grudgingly tip my cap.  The thing about crow is that if you put enough butter and teriyaki and/or lemon pepper on it you can almost convince yourself that the first bite tastes like chicken... but definitely by the second bite you're like "ah, no, that tastes like crow."

On the it's funny that those who endorsed the second yellow did so based on not what the yellow actually was given for (allegedly)...what's even funnier is that if they did that it was also because of the broadcast which the broadcasters also endorsed in real time and for some time thereafter (and just above here as well), so that's not quite the own there implied.  And aside from whether deserved or not, technically or otherwise, there seems to be at least some consensus that the ref lost track and may indeed have kept the card in his pocket if he had realized in the moment that he was gonna pull a second card. The look on the player's face even seemed to suggest he knew the ref didn't know but that he was screwed because once drawn there was no way for the ref to put it back...then the look at the book..and the delayed pull for the red.

WUPHF, there are miles and miles between extended periods of silence and letting the game breathe a little.  An anecdote here and there over 90 or 110 minutes is fine, to be expected, and maybe even a nice touch, but some of the completely irrelevant banter would happen when a team was moving the ball inside the 18.  I'm not exaggerating when at times it seemed more like the game was interrupting a video of the banter between two old friends at a bar watching a game, and maybe in some respect they were catching up and maybe the fact of the missed year and long wait had an impact.  Buck/Aikman and "lulls in the action" of two national semis?  Please, stop.  I mean, what's the over/under here on me thinking as I'm watching "wish they'd bring in Mr. Sager"?
You guys are super-experienced, know your stuff for the most part, have good chemistry with each other, etc, and I'm sure seeing snarky, jesting criticism after a very long day isn't pleasant, but you're broadcasters putting yourself out there to a (national) audience, so maybe try to hear the feedback and tone down the reminiscing and hyper-verbality.  All that said, work address is 25 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 02114.  Happy to show you around and let you observe.

So, not happy about another NESCAC final, especially after two OT games that easily could have gone the other way, but I look forward to seeing how this last game plays out.  Also curious if most think there was no PK call to be made for Chicago in OT because of course, especially with what that call could mean in OT, Kelly and Hope-Gund are going to pre-preemptively wave the "no, no, nothing there" finger and home plate safe sign.

I think it's hilarious you gave out your actual work address. Well played sir....well played.

[Gregory Sager]

On the it's funny that those who endorsed the second yellow did so based on not what the yellow actually was given for (allegedly)...what's even funnier is that if they did that it was also because of the broadcast which the broadcasters also endorsed in real time and for some time thereafter (and just above here as well), so that's not quite the own there implied.

I'm the one who made that statement, and I was not implying that it was an "own". That would mean that I was "owning" myself in the process:

FYI the second yellow on 10 for W&L had nothing to do with the contact. I Believe the initial whistle was blown for the ball being out of bounds (not positive). Apparently the official felt what happened afterward warranted the yellow ... he kicks the ball in frustration over the endline and to the fence. Apparently the official felt it was unnecessary and likely stalling (in a 1-1 game?!). So he applied the yellow for that ... NOT the contact that confused everyone.

And if you are wondering, that's according to those I've talked to who were near the moment and heard the convo.

Interesting. I didn't see the frustration kick at all.

... and I, too, was going off of what Dave and Ira said as well as what I saw (twice, when you include the replay). They questioned the call, based upon what they saw in real-time and via the replay, and were completely unaware of the after-the-whistle kick, and I was on board with them. As for my post, I was simply reacting to the rather vehement insistence of Ejay, following up on Hopkins92's somewhat lukewarm endorsement of the call, that it was a well-deserved yellow. It struck me as funny because, like Ejay, I, too, have all-too-often been vehement about something that I thought I saw -- only to learn later from someone close to the play (or from a player who was actually in the middle of it) that it didn't happen the way I thought it did.

That's why it's always a good idea to come armed with a bagful of qualifiers such as "apparently," "seems like," "looked to me like," etc., when you step into a press box and put on a headset or sit in front of a mic. Things are not always what they appear to be from your vantage point hundreds of feet away -- and sometimes that's even true when you have access to replays.

And aside from whether deserved or not, technically or otherwise, there seems to be at least some consensus that the ref lost track and may indeed have kept the card in his pocket if he had realized in the moment that he was gonna pull a second card. The look on the player's face even seemed to suggest he knew the ref didn't know but that he was screwed because once drawn there was no way for the ref to put it back...then the look at the book..and the delayed pull for the red.

This, 100%. And it's worth noting that Dave and Ira, for all of the crap that they're taking here, were right on top of that as well in their call of how the ref was handling the situation of Kutsanzira's foul.

[Gregory Sager]

Don't worry about the critics enjoy most of the stories, but could not understand how the team missed  Cubbedu coming on in the 30th minute and did not notice until , like 10 minutes later.

I'm going to stick up for Dave and Ira on this one, because I can speak from experience. Unless you have someone stationed benchside who is texting a member of the production team up in the press box, it's often hard for a broadcaster to track the numbers of incoming and outgoing players. This was made doubly hard yesterday because of the peculiarity of Amherst's kit. Dave and Ira made mention before the game that Amherst's purple numbers on black jerseys were incredibly hard to read, and that, aside from a couple of players whom they physically recognized from previous Mammoths contests (Giammatei and Okorogheye), they were going to have a hard time identifying the Mammoths from up in the press box. I thought that they did a good job, for the most part, because when you're calling a game you eventually get used to where particular players are typically found on the field (especially if the coach is using standard formations and plays he's used in the videos of his team that you've seen beforehand). But incoming and outgoing players? That's another thing, entirely.

My two cents — look, you guys are much better than most of us are (or will be) in terms of announcing. I'm sure someone would have a field day with the couple of radio things I did in college. And, as someone who wrote a column for D3soccer for 4 years, I used to get messages from people in my inbox all the time basically saying some version of "(semantic point) X is wrong." Even if you get 96% of things right, there will be people queueing up to call you out on the other 4%. Could be very aggravating but they were usually justified in their feedback. That's life — humans are taught to outweigh the importance of "the expected" and place more importance on anomalies. Probably why we feel losses 50% more, hence the concept of loss aversion.

My only feeling regarding last night was that when watching the professional game (the best) commentators tend to let things build a bit — they still tell plenty of anecdotes, but they pace them out pretty well and aren't afraid to let the crowd carry the noise from time to time. I do get the desire to fill the noise when the crowd noise is relatively down, but what if the sound guys could get a really good feed? Let the fans build the aura and you keep the continuity. The Maidenform thing was funny and has happened to all of us at some point but yeah Giamanti was the one that stuck out to me (as others have noticed, he has been pretty high-profile for the last few years). Doesn't mean that people don't mispronounce his name (it's not Smith or Jones, for example) but might have warranted another look.

A very valuable two cents, indeed. This is the best post in this entire thread, blooter.

The problem with the crowd noise thing, vis-a-vis D3, is that you don't have the sea of people that you get in a professional game, so you have to balance things out a little differently. And even if the attendance is sizeable in a D3 game, sometimes the crowd is on the opposite side of the field from the camera and/or field mics. And sometimes the crowd is spaced in such a way that the only people who are audible are the ones who are the closest to those mics -- which means that, instead of the roar of a huge crowd, you get distinct individual voices. (That occasionally happened yesterday.) In other words, I don't think a broadcaster is able to let the crowd carry the noise in most D3 games (including, alas, the national semifinals). Sometimes it's the opposite matter -- you have to keep talking so that the viewer doesn't get an earful of the midfielder's dad screaming at the ref or the drunken fratboy making loud insinuations about the opposing forward's sexuality.

Greg, I actually have done the past 3 D3hoops classics in Vegas...missing this year unfortunately due to a bowl game conflict...but those are LONGGGG days. I actually announce professional men's volleyball and those are 12-14 hour days, so actually used to those long days.

Now that I think about it, I do seem to recall hearing you commentate a game in Vegas a few years ago. (In fact, the more I think about it, the more I recall it involving an NJAC team, which would make sense that Pat would give it to you.)

A men's volleyball marathon? Yikes. Call-wise, volleyball is by far the most difficult sport that I work for NPU, although I think that D3 women's volleyball is tougher than D3 men's volleyball for PBP. Some of the rallies on the women's side seem to go on forever.

[PaulNewman]

Appreciated your responses, Greg.

Now that we're here at the end, I'll tell you that I think NP was/is a great team, imo, aside from arguably Tufts and putting my own interest aside, the best team to not make the Final 4. A NP vs Amherst game would have been fascinating and would have been curious to see how your Vikings handled the Amherst pressure/style.

And Ira, don't know if you were being sarcastic, but given the myriad ways you could have responded to that post, well played yourself, sir (not sarcastic).

[Gregory Sager]

Thanks, PN.

I share your dismay with regard to another all-NESCAC final. Of course, it's a moot point for me, since I'll be calling an NPU women's basketball game while the final takes place, and I therefore can't watch it. I will say that I'm rooting for Conn College, though -- not because I have any animosity towards Amherst or Serpone or his players or anything (I don't watch enough of the Mammoths to have built up grievances regarding their alleged poor deportment), but because Amherst's trophy case is bursting at the seams with Walnut & Bronze, while by contrast Conn College appears to be the red-headed stepchild of the NESCAC. As Dave and Ira detailed yesterday, the Camels have never won a national championship in anything -- and, in fact, they've only been in a D3 Final Four in any sport once before, and that was all the way back in the 1998-99 men's basketball tourney.

Weird as it may seem, an all-NESCAC final involves an actual underdog of sorts.

[PaulNewman]

No one has said anything and/or maybe none have seen good replays about the question of PK late...

Let's say there was...then the ref in each game had a major moment, and if we for sake of argument say both got the calls most of us would probably prefer what the 2nd ref did on the theory of "not deciding the game" on that kind of play. If really deserved a PK Chicago obviously would disagree but would have taken a lot of guts to make that call at that point.  Anyway, too bad on the first game because otherwise I think 1st ref had a pretty good game.

[Convict charlie]

Greg, I actually have done the past 3 D3hoops classics in Vegas...missing this year unfortunately due to a bowl game conflict...but those are LONGGGG days. I actually announce professional men's volleyball and those are 12-14 hour days, so actually used to those long days.

To the others, Dave and I do read the constructive feedback, so thank you. These events are tough. Certainly don't want to be a homer towards any team. I spend hours speaking to each coach 1:1 to get further background on the teams. It's absolutely a challenging process for a one-weekend a year commitment, versus guys who their full time job is to announce and they get to spend every moment committed only to a broadcast.

Either way, please tune in today and enjoy the games...my predictions are TCNJ and Amherst winning, but think both will be one-goal games. The margins between all of the teams playing this weekend were so razor thin.

I've watch jes one game this year in its entirety. Been awhile since I coached college or played in it. I do tend to check scores and rankings etc
I watched the overtime for the Amherst/Chicago game. I thought Amherst was so much better in the first overtime. Text my friend how good they were. Then roles were reversed in the second one as Chicago being better. Chicago should've won it too if it wasn't for a great save.
I coached and played at medaille college. When it came to the question of the penalty shots I knew the answer and glad you looked for it. We lost in the round of 32 (after a first round bye) to Nazareth in the 20th shooter once. Anyways the point I wanted to make was just being on the roster (22 on game day) you can take a penalty if it goes to that. If you get past 10 they go through the same order again. Few years back in the final four messiah backup goalkeeper never played a minute. They won both games via penalties and he was named mvp of the tournament.

[Hopkins92]

I often watch these games with the volume off, which has zero to do with the quality of the broadcast and 100 percent to do with also having something on that my wife is also watching. (Last night was the first two episodes of Hawkeye, which is a pretty good show. Hailee Steinfeld is a delight).

Anyways, when I did throw the headphones on I heard two guys that know the game pretty well and had decent banter. I am NOT a fan of announcing that acts like they are doing PbP for radio. I don't need every pass recorded for posteriety, I can see they are swinging the ball around the back. The better crews do this early, just to set the lineup and formation (and likely to get themselves into the flow, so to speak), but after awhile you let the basic, work-a-day stuff happen without calling it.

With that said, yeah, I too would note that at times there were things happening in dangerous areas of the field and the PbP was finishing up an anecdote. That can be jarring, because your brain is waiting for the announcer to clue in that there's "something of import" going on in the game. But, really, it wasn't a constant stream of anecdotes (to my ear).

Overall, I've enjoyed finding teams that have good announcing crews, with varying degrees of professionalism (Tufts, Mary Washington, Hopkins, W&L, North Park, etc.) on display. Then you have a number that I won't call out where a combination really poor camera angles and guys that seem like this is their stepping stone to the Ha Ha Hut or Laughadoodles Laugh Lounge or whatever.

And, for those that know, the hilariously Andy van Dyke "Step in Time" do it all yourself announcing guy at Eastern... he gets his own category of award -- Swiss Army Knife Award?

[WUPHF]

WUPHF, there are miles and miles between extended periods of silence and letting the game breathe a little.  An anecdote here and there over 90 or 110 minutes is fine, to be expected, and maybe even a nice touch, but some of the completely irrelevant banter would happen when a team was moving the ball inside the 18.  I'm not exaggerating when at times it seemed more like the game was interrupting a video of the banter between two old friends at a bar watching a game, and maybe in some respect they were catching up and maybe the fact of the missed year and long wait had an impact.  Buck/Aikman and "lulls in the action" of two national semis?  Please, stop.  I mean, what's the over/under here on me thinking as I'm watching "wish they'd bring in Mr. Sager"?

I only watched minutes here and there so fair enough.

[PaulNewman]

I often watch these games with the volume off, which has zero to do with the quality of the broadcast and 100 percent to do with also having something on that my wife is also watching. (Last night was the first two episodes of Hawkeye, which is a pretty good show. Hailee Steinfeld is a delight).

Anyways, when I did throw the headphones on I heard two guys that know the game pretty well and had decent banter. I am NOT a fan of announcing that acts like they are doing PbP for radio. I don't need every pass recorded for posteriety, I can see they are swinging the ball around the back. The better crews do this early, just to set the lineup and formation (and likely to get themselves into the flow, so to speak), but after awhile you let the basic, work-a-day stuff happen without calling it.

With that said, yeah, I too would note that at times there were things happening in dangerous areas of the field and the PbP was finishing up an anecdote. That can be jarring, because your brain is waiting for the announcer to clue in that there's "something of import" going on in the game. But, really, it wasn't a constant stream of anecdotes (to my ear).

Overall, I've enjoyed finding teams that have good announcing crews, with varying degrees of professionalism (Tufts, Mary Washington, Hopkins, W&L, North Park, etc.) on display. Then you have a number that I won't call out where a combination really poor camera angles and guys that seem like this is their stepping stone to the Ha Ha Hut or Laughadoodles Laugh Lounge or whatever.

And, for those that know, the hilariously Andy van Dyke "Step in Time" do it all yourself announcing guy at Eastern... he gets his own category of award -- Swiss Army Knife Award?

I suppose we all have our preferences which overlap or don't in varying degrees.

My expectation is something on a continuum solidly in between two extreme poles of non-stop talk often at best vaguely tangential to anything related to the game/schools/D3 and at the other end a fine grained analysis a la Mr. Right or SimpleCoach with like Chicago is coming out in a 3-4-2-1 with inverted wings from their prior tilt and clearly targeting St Olaf's right back who didn't start the last two games but has size to combat Wada on corners.  If you tuned in for a couple of hours straight you might tire more than you think (and I would guess the announcers might partly agree if they listened to a playback). Less significant were what seemed possible dubious observations like GG being injured most of the year (two years ago is when he had some kind of facial injury and wore a mask...and this year literally the only Amherst player to play in and start all 21 games) and Johnson showing significantly improved accuracy/power on flip throws (I think false) from two years ago, etc, etc.  Anecdotes about players, what they learned form coaches of the teams over the past couple of days, who won the top academic awards at the Final 4 (Elite something or other), comparisons to the last Final 4, a few comments about upcoming Final 4s, and maybe a very occasional reference to back in the day when I was a GK, etc are fine and often quite additive.  To be clear, I don't need player X passes to player C and so on, but these are Final 4 games and should be front and center., and I'd rather commentary/anecdotes follow from and add color to the game in front of us rather rather than having to scramble back to the action on the field.  And not talking for a few seconds here and there is OK.  There is no "down time" in national semis that needs to be filled.  These aren't ho-hum bottom of the table conference games in mid-October.  More than anything, I come back to just letting the game breathe a little bit and making the game and players the stars of the show.

Btw, i do always try to be fair unless I'm really, really ticked off....just listened to the Amherst postgame press thing from last night and was reminded that at least in those kind of spots Serpone is flawless.  Whether it's an act or not I don't know, but certainly sounds genuine, extremely gracious and appreciative, obviously very smart, and quoting poets lol.

[SimpleCoach]

All -

Tried doing a pre-game show .. had some difficulties with YouTube.

SimpleCoach's Pre-Game Show

Don't know what I am doing, but kind of geeking out over it.

Enjoy the game all!

[PaulNewman]

Fantastic stuff, SC.  What an addition you've been.   I feel like I need to watch 2nd half again as I thought Chicago had great difficulty getting into the Amherst half and sustaining possession except for a few flurries and then in 2nd OT...and you seem to feel they did carry the play in @ndf half.  I was heavily for Chicago and just felt like they were under extreme pressure much of the 2nd half with long ball after long ball and flip throw after flip throw into the box.

[Jump4Joy]

Will be interesting to see how these familiar foes ask questions of one another tonight.
Announcers: much improved coverage so far.