Raftery and Gus on New Years Eve

[redmen9194]

Word is Raft and Gus will be in Cincy to call the Xavier / St. John's game, then will travel to Indy for Butler / Villanova. Onions!

[Xudash]

Word is Raft and Gus will be in Cincy to call the Xavier / St. John's game, then will travel to Indy for Butler / Villanova. Onions!

Looking forward to cranking it up with you guys.

Can you begin to fathom what it means to a Xavier fan to contemplate St. John's, where Fordham otherwise used to take up schedule space and kill RPI?

[Jet915]

Still curious to see who the other commentators for FS1 will be and what analysts they will hire. Would think decision should be made soon.

[Bulldawg]

I'm hoping we get some good analysts for Fox Sports, I remember CBS Sports and NBC sports which covered some of Butler's games, had some pretty lousy announcers at times.

[redmen9194]

Word is Raft and Gus will be in Cincy to call the Xavier / St. John's game, then will travel to Indy for Butler / Villanova. Onions!

Looking forward to cranking it up with you guys.

Can you begin to fathom what it means to a Xavier fan to contemplate St. John's, where Fordham otherwise used to take up schedule space and kill RPI?

Xavier / St. John's with Gus and Raft in the building is a great way to kick off the Big East season. I figured they would do two games of the marathon, glad we are one of them.

[OutlawWales]

Can't wait to hear those guys calling games this year. And that X/SJU game should be a great kickoff to this league. Saw Raftery when he was in Omaha last week. Not going to lie, though, that I am a little disappointed that those two aren't calling Creighton/Marquette on the league's first day/night of conference action -- two teams that are pretty universally predicted to finish in the top 3 seems like it would justify having the marquee announcing team. Probably the first -- and not the last -- incidence of geography and its impact, eh?

[ArmyVet]

Still curious to see who the other commentators for FS1 will be and what analysts they will hire. Would think decision should be made soon.

I asked this once before and no one seemed to have an answer. I sure hope the B and C pairs are good.

[Jet915]

Gus Johnson on Crowd Goes Wild this hour, hopefully he'll talk some Big East.

Edit: talks Big East, calls "Greg McDermott" an all-american from Creighton who could have gone to the NBA last year. Still working out the kinks, not basketball season yet!

[GumbyDamnit!]

Can't wait to hear those guys calling games this year. And that X/SJU game should be a great kickoff to this league. Saw Raftery when he was in Omaha last week. Not going to lie, though, that I am a little disappointed that those two aren't calling Creighton/Marquette on the league's first day/night of conference action -- two teams that are pretty universally predicted to finish in the top 3 seems like it would justify having the marquee announcing team. Probably the first -- and not the last -- incidence of geography and its impact, eh?

Although Creighton may be picked to come in one of the top spots, I liken them to the Tampa Bay Rays of the nBE. They may be talented and may win their share of games this year but they have not yet earned their stripes to get top billing. I would think, for now, those spots are reserved for the SJU, Gtwn, Marq, Nova (the Yanks, O's & Sox of the league) as they promote the league early on. McDermott, alone, probably creates the buzz rather than the Creighton brand as a whole.

For this billing it seems clear that it works geographically and the Nova/Butler game airs in prime time in most of the BE markets so they might have wanted them there for that.

[Irishdawg]

Former Providence player and Pacer announcer Austin Croshere will be an analyst for FS1.