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Battle of the Broadcasters

We've started our own little basketball tournament, with a field of 32 college basketball broadcasters that you'll eventually narrow down to a champion on April 6, the day of the NCAA championship game. The field is broken into four "regionals" — play-by-play announcers, color commentators, studio hosts and analysts, and the best of the rest. You can find it here.

Since we decided to start with a field of 32, we had to leave out some announcers, you ought to weigh in on that if you disagree with any of the picks. The first vote involves picking four out of each group of eight.

My picks: play-by-play — Nantz, Enberg, Shulman, Johnson: color commentators — Bilas, Gminski, Elmore and Bonner; studio hosts and analysts — Rece Davis, Seth Davis, Knight and Gottlieb; best of the rest — Burke, Kellogg, Lundquist and McDonough.

I like Dickie V's passion and fun factor, but I prefer the more serious analysts who are more inclined to make a point I hadn't thought of, though I doubt any one of these folks is liable to openly challenge the NCAA or the college sports industry on anything. 

Coming: announcer playoffs

To coincide with the NCAA Tournament, next Monday we'll kick off an elimination tourney for college basketball announcers on television, and you, the viewers, get to pick the best ones. We'll start with 32 — frankly, it would be difficult to come up with a worthy field of 64 on TV — broken up into four groups of eight: play-by-play announcers, color analysts, studio hosts and analysts and sort of an at-large bracket that includes the best of the rest. Vitale's in it, of course. Nantz and Enberg are in it. Gminski and Bilas. We even invited Steve Lavin to the dance. Look for ballot next Monday.

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