ESPN's Bonnie Bernstein was a guest on Mike and Mike in the Morning Wednesday, and when the subject turned to a high school basketball player who is considering playing professionally in Europe instead of going to college, Bernstein made an extremely odd comparison between American high school basketball players and Palestinian suicide bombers.
I've just reviewed the show in question and transcribed the full text of Bernstein's comments below.
It's sort of like, you know, and this isn't -- I'm prefacing this by saying this is in no way an analogy to sports because I know we live in a hypersensitive society -- but I remember a while ago I was reading an article in the New York Times about Palestinian suicide bombers and I just remember being struck by the notion that from the point of birth, people in Palestine are taught to think that dying in the name of God is a good thing.
They grow up wanting to be suicide bombers. So bringing it back to sports -- and again, I'm not making the comparison or the analogy -- if a young talented basketball player is being told at an early age that they are destined, it is a good thing to focus on basketball and not worry about what's going on in the classroom, why are any kids going to be worried about what's going on in the classroom?
Bernstein seemed to know that what she was saying would offend people, and sure enough, it did.
The conference's TV contracts are in place through the end of the 2010-11 academic year. Any serious tinkering with the ACC's schedules will come when the TV deals expire, so that the conference can maximize the financial payoff of its changes.
The conference feels that they don't want to give away extra games for free.
After all, they know that the ACC is still damn good TV. Five of the top ten college hoops games on ESPN involved at least one ACC team. The second North Carolina-Duke game was ESPN's highest rated game -- ever. As for football, Clemson-Florida State was the World Wide Leader's top rated college game ... while Boston College-Virginia Tech was ESPN's highest rated Thursday game -- ever.
Vitale is an emotional guy, whether he's talking about his favorite payers or his favorite coaches or his parents or his own broadcasting career. Sometimes his emotion can inspire and sometimes it can grate, but it's that approach to the game that got him into the Hall of Fame.
Former coach and current ESPN analyst Bob Knight is nothing if not a shill for any company that will pay him to endorse its product, and his latest is this Volkswagen commercial:
I have to say, it sucks, and it's a little embarrassing to watch Knight making a fool of himself like that. Awful Announcing says, "I'm all for people making as much money anyway they can, but this is a little ridiculous." And Sporting Blog says, "this new VW commercial featuring Knight is just not good. Like, at all." I agree. C'mon, Knight. You're better than that.
ESPN's Jay Bilas was a guest on Dan Le Batard's radio show and they got into it. The main topic of discussion was race in basketball (mainly at Tyler Hansbrough's pro prospects).
It didn't seem to be what Bilas wanted to discuss. I mean, it is only the national championship coming up and I'm sure that Jay was prepared to talk about that. Le Batard instead hit him up with weird questions about scenarios if Hansbrough was black or Michael Beasley was white.
After a heated exchange, Bilas got off this classic blast -- "Take offense ... it's stupid"
ESPN basketball analyst Dick Vitale has been inducted into the National College Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced today. He's also a finalist for the more prestigious Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He'll find out if he got into that one tomorrow.
Vitale released the following statement:
"I can't begin to describe how honored I am to be included with the greatest minds and athletes of this sport," said Vitale. "College basketball has given me a life I didn't dream was possible. After nearly 30 years at ESPN I still can't believe I'm getting paid to be a part of this game I love. I just wish my mom and dad were here to share in this accomplishment with me."
Vitale will be inducted in the College Basketball Hall of Fame, in Kansas City, in November. Although Vitale was a college and NBA coach, this induction is for his 29 seasons of work as a broadcaster, and for the work he's done as an all-around ambassador for the game.
Awful Announcing presents this video from ESPN's coverage of the College Slam Dunk and 3-Point Shootout Contest. The camera pans on the wife and daughter of Jimmy Dykes, who was working the event as an ESPN broadcaster, and then things get awkward:
First one of Dykes' ESPN colleagues, Brad Nessler, referred to Dykes' wife as "gorgeous." That might be crossing the line a little bit.
And then the other ESPN broadcaster, Steve Lavin, went well past the line: "Wow. That is impressive, Jimmy. That is clearly Exhibit A, B and C for one, overachieving, two, playing outside your league, and three, what do they call it, out-punting your coverage in football? I think that's what it is. Impressive"
OK, Steve, we get it. You think Dykes' wife is attractive. You can stop now.
You may have seen Deadspin's media approval ratings, where blog readers pass judgment on on the members of the mainstream media. They're an opportunity for those who prefer to get their sports news and opinion in the blogosphere to have their say about those who provide the sports news and opinion on TV and in print.
And in a stroke of genius, Ballhype has taken those approval ratings and condensed them into one handy Media Approval Leaderboard. The Leaderboard is a great thumbnail of the way blog readers view the members of the mainstream sports media, and it was interesting to see who comes in dead last, with an approval rating of 10%: CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer.
Why Packer? Deadspin commenter Signal to Noise summarized what many in the blogosphere think, and this is the portion of his comment I can reprint:
Packer commentates on a sport that I can only assume he hates, based on what he says during games.
Packer does, indeed, offer up a healthy dose of criticism and complaints during his college basketball commentary, and that's not the way to win popularity contests. Fortunately for Packer, he'll never know he's disliked online, because he doesn't own a computer.
David Letterman was born in Indianapolis, the home of Butler University, and that may be why he's convinced that Butler deserves another chance at playing Tennessee, the team it lost to in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday:
"The Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Butler Bulldogs, 76-71," Letterman said. "Apparently, there still is some time on the clock, so they're going to run the overtime over again. They found that they had let the clock run during a timeout mistakenly, and they think there's a good chance that Butler will be back in the Tournament."
I'm not sure it works that way, but I do like the way Letterman has maintained loyalty to his Indiana teams even after working in New York for three decades. He's no fair-weather fan.
ESPN's Bonnie Bernstein was a guest on Mike and Mike in the Morning Wednesday, and when the subject turned to a high school basketball player who is considering playing professionally in Europe instead of going to college, Bernstein made an extremely odd comparison between American high school basketball players and Palestinian suicide bombers. 
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