Need New Basketball Radio Play by Play

#26
#26
TheMookieMonster said:
I don’t think it’s fair to make sweeping judgement about Mike’s ability to call basketball games just yet. Like @NighthawkVol implied above me, it’s exceedingly rare, if not impossible to find someone who excels on radio at calling all 3 sports.

Mike is going to get better. They also aren’t going to fire him and replace him with someone else lol. So we might as well give him a chance to improve and just understand he won’t be as good as he is at football. I mean, it’s not like Bob Kesling was the best basketball announcer either.
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No one has called for Mike to be fired. I suggested letting Mike stick to football and hire a basketball guy. That's all.
 
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#27
#27
rdk4121 said:
I always thought Bob was great at basketball, him and Bert were a great pairing. Bob certainly lost some enthusiasm in these recent years.

I haven't listened to much of the radio broadcasts this year. Maybe Chris and Mike will improve. Steve Hamer is terrible though. He is mostly incoherent and just rambles. While I'm sure his knowledge of basketball is fine, it absolutely does not come across in any broadcast I've ever heard from him.

Dane is fantastic, but I don't see why he'd leave his SEC network gig for just a radio gig.
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Dane is an analyst. Play-by-play is entirely different
 
#29
#29
Flamparadiddle said:
Good grief. Let's fire the waterboy for not waterboying right, let's fire the cheerleaders for not cheering right, let's fire the band for taking too long at half time, let's fire smokey for not barking at the right time.
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Why fire the cheerleaders? The only people watching them are their parents and boy/girlfriends.
 
#31
#31
TheMookieMonster said:
That’s just a different way of saying fire him as the basketball guy lol. Distinction without a difference.
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No it's not. To me he's pulling double duty. They hired him from a spot where he only did football for 25+ years with NO basketball experience. It would just be letting him do what he does best and the real reason he was hired.
 
#32
#32
madbamahater said:
No it's not. To me he's pulling double duty. They hired him from a spot where he only did football for 25+ years with NO basketball experience. It would just be letting him do what he does best and the real reason he was hired.
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He's pulling double duty because that's the job of being the play by play guy at Tennessee. They can change it but the point is you probably need to let him have a season or 2 to get used to calling basketball before you call for changes that big. Also from everything I've seen, MK wants to do both.

I've listened to a few games and I thought he was fine. Bob was pretty terrible at both for his first few seasons and never was particularly great at football but got much better at basketball.
 
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#34
#34
CobbWebb71 said:
Lord forgive me for saying this, but…Chris Lofton ain’t exactly helping matters.

Steve Hamer and/or Dane Bradshaw would be my guys, if one of them could get a little more seasoning as a play by play guy, rather than just a color guy.
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This is definitely making it worse. Lofton is as green as it gets at this and Keith is struggling a bit. Feels like Wilkerson is there just to try to get Lofton to speak up more. Bob and Bert were as good as it gets. Bob was pretty dang good for basketball radio.

Would’ve been nice if Bert could’ve stuck around a year to maybe help Keith out.
 
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#35
#35
madbamahater said:
I just don't think it gets better for Mike. Can't roll outta bed and become a basketball guy. As much as Kesling drive me nuts, because I never knew the score or the time, he at least fundamentally understood the sport. Bob came up in basketball and that's what he spent his overwhelming majority of his career doing. Now with football Bob was atrocious.

As great as John Ward was with football he was even better with basketball. I know we have to stop comparing everybody to John. We were just blessed with one of the best to literally ever do it.
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Can't speak of Mike, as I've never heard him outside of isolated highlights, but he's a bit too much of a shouter for me.

Regarding Ward, 100% agree that basketball was where he really shined. He was a great football PBP guy, but he was unmatched doing hoops. In my time at UT (early '80's), I can honestly not recall offhand any of his football calls of road games, but distinctly remember being riveted at his calls of UT road basketball games. His "bottom!" call of big shots is iconic, and something I never heard before or since.
 
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#36
#36
Lankykong said:
I think we should give them a season before calling for everyone to be replaced. Many of us aren’t old enough to remember Kesling or Ward’s first games called (or if we are we don’t remember it well). Mike seems to care a lot about what he does so I could see him studying up in the offseason and improving, and we know Lofton puts in hard work.

I will say I liked Kesling for basketball though, and Bert was fun
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Yep, it takes time to find your roles and wheel house. Also whatever was/is playing when you/we were young always seems better. My dad always said Lindsey Nelson was better than John Ward but that was in his era 1950s and great Vol championship teams just after the Vol Network started in 1949 or so.
I agree with you on Kesling for Bball and Bert was a perfect ying to Bobs Yang.
 
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