While Jay Bilas was broadcasting the Wednesday night men’s college basketball matchup featuring Florida and Alabama, he spoke about several aspects of the game that he thinks needs to be changed. On the call alongside play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch, he elucidated that he wants to see the sport move to a quarter system, change the replay rule and alter timeout rules to be able to advance the ball to half court in order to save time. Despite being someone who has been on the call for games on ESPN over three decades, he articulated that he is not a traditionalist in regards to the latter and understands that reasonable minds can differ on the issue.
Dusty Likins, morning show co-host on 96.5 The Fan, watched college basketball and brought the audio of Bilas conveying his thoughts on the game to the program. Bilas, who was a four-year starter at Duke University, proceeded to obtain his law degree from the institution. Ahead of a change in broadcast assignments under which Bilas will be working with Dan Shulman on the SEC Tournament this year rather than the ACC bracket, he provided his opinions and catalyzed further discussion about the issues surrounding the game.
“He’s an educated person on a very big topic for me in part of that this is something [about] college basketball,” Likins explained. “Like he said, we’re the only form of basketball in the world that does halves. We all can agree that college basketball games are getting entirely too long.”
Morning show co-host Bob Fescoe, however, felt it was the final two minutes of the games that were becoming too long rather than the entire contest themselves. The difference, he explained, came in the fouls to give, which ultimately results in a maelstrom of fouls, reviews and timeouts. In watching college basketball on Wednesday night, Likins remembers both teams being in the bonus with seven-and-a-half minutes left, further prolonging the action.
“Do you think Bilas is the kind of guy that can preach this rhetoric and it can also get into the minds of people because he does mention one thing,” Likins outlined. “‘The traditional ones say you have to earn it,’ and he goes, ‘I’m not one of those people.’ Jay Bilas has been doing college basketball since I came out of the womb.”
Likins articulated that college basketball is in need of a renaissance and that the sport would likely focus on Duke forward Cooper Flagg as March Madness approaches. In fact, he drew a comparison to Major League Baseball in that it took action to fix the sport by speeding up games through innovations such as the pitch clock, ghost runners and a new challenge system. Likins added that if a college basketball game commenced at 8 p.m., it would not be completed until 10:30 p.m., something that he perceives to be an issue.
“Well the problem is they never start at 8, and that’s the other problem is when you have that second game – we’ve complained about this for a generation now – because of the first game going so long and going to fouls, and so your game tips at 8:15 and then the TV coverage doesn’t begin until 8:30, [so] you miss the first 10 minutes of the game,” Fescoe said. “That’s been rinse-repeat with college basketball.”
Rather than watching college basketball on Wednesday night, Fescoe opted to watch a rerun of a spring training game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels. Reflecting on the broadcast, he remarked about the subpar production quality and how the pregame show host was broadcasting from her home office. Fescoe was able to watch the matchup in part because the game moves quickly and also has star power, acknowledging that the game has “hit a sweet spot” not previously seen in his life.
“That’s what college basketball needs, but the only way you can establish those stars is to have continuity, and I don’t know that we’re going to see continuity in college basketball any time soon because we’re not seeing it with the coaches anymore – they’re all bailing right now,” Fescoe said. “Players are changing teams, you’re not staying four years, which is fine – I don’t begrudge anybody for that – but the only way you can really get better in college basketball is go to the quarter system.”
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