Most Annoying Announcer (Non-Vitale Division): The SSS 2007-08 College Hoops Preview for Non-Psychics

By now the sweeping deluge of preseason awards/picks/rankings/All Whatever teams has subsided and given way to a far less exciting form of entertainment, actual live basketball. This pesky little distraction to what is really important - inane speculation plucked ripe from the collective media asshole - what with its final scores and concrete evidence, is not going to deny SSS the right to pillage our own sphincters for blind prognostications pawned off as heavily supported hypotheses. But with all of the standard preseason awards already put into the trusting hands of the media and coaches, SSS gives you its own brand of "alternative" preseason awards, to be distributed periodically over the duration of these fancy tip-off tournaments.

Today: Most Annoying Announcer (Non Vitale Division)
Previously: Most Hated White Guy Award (JJ Redick Memorial Trophy)

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Obviously, the field is wide open when removing Vitale from the mix. His transgressions will be dissected on their own at a later date. I need time, some serious soul-searching and probably a lot of alcohol to tackle Dickie V. But luckily for us, most announcers suck ass! So even though these idiots are duking it out in the NIT to Vitale's March Madness of suckiness, they are still pretty terrible.

I took a long look at Mike Patrick -- which can often lead to nausea, diarrhea and, in extreme cases, vertigo -- but I ultimately decided that Patrick was so bad that he should actually be considered part of the Vitale Division, the Bowl Subdivision of ineptitude, if you will. He's spent so much time around Vitale that his idiocy, probably cloaked in the form of Old Person Smell, has seeped into Patrick's brain, causing a strange mix of senility and perversion. So he's out.

Billy Packer is pretty bad, not gonna lie. But Packer has that weird Johnny Miller thing going for him. You hate him, but you always seem more interested when he is announcing. He's an idiot, but an entertaining idiot... or something. Clearly this entire selection process has resulted in serious psychological distress, I'm flustered.

But maybe, no certainly, my twisted, backwards defense of Packer is being dictated by outside forces. Yes, I know why Packer seems more tolerable than I had imagined. It's because he's usually sitting next to Jim Fucking Nantz. Eureka!


Yes, you're 2007 Preseason Most Annoying Announcer is Jim Nantz, seen here giving the famously creepy, Jim Nantz Gaze. Usually it occurs whenever he is speaking with someone, most frequently his broadcasting partner before the game. When the other person is talking Nantz stares at him with a kind of half-smile, like he's watching a chef twirl pizza dough or a cat clean himself. It may appear Nantz is listening, and he occasionally looks back at the camera so the audience doesn't think he's in the early stages of cardiac arrest, but he's not listening at all. In fact, I'm quite certain that sappy Masters music is playing in his head whenever he's not talking (or "Hold My Hand" by Hootie and the Blowfish). Seriously, look at this guy.


If it's not the Masters or Hootie in his head, there are absolutely unspeakable thoughts going on instead. No one just smiles like that, no one.

Besides the gaze, Nantz represents every old, dorky white guy that ruins sports. My thoughts on his atrocious golf coverage are covered here (and Slate destroys him here). His words are melodramatic, he always uses cheesy puns ("A Chomp-ionship for the Gators is twice as nice!") and double entendres and never once challenges Packer's inane ramblings. He is generally a patsy for the big programs and the NCAA and by the time the Final Four comes around, when fans are ready to enjoy the conclusion of an outstanding month of exciting basketball, Nantz chooses to focus on pageantry and metaphors and a full-on slobbering of all the coaches that led their teams to the end. He is. Whether it's the players and the boosters, the students and the alumni, the bloggers and the sports journalists, Nantz's intolerable sappiness being forced upon a young generation of basketball fans is another example of a game being dictated and profited by old rich people but played and consumed by kids and young adults.

Oh, and that One Shining Moment thing? There is no doubt in my mind that was Nantz's idea.