So ESPN’s Andy Katz recently talked to all 65 coaches, who’s teams are participating in the Tournament, and during the one-hour ESPNU show he apparently broke all kinds of records. Not that anyone has kept the stat of “Number of Coaches talked to in a day”, but I’m pretty sure no one has ever tackled a total of sixty five in a one-hour span. ESPN just released some of the details surrounding the calls, and the sheer volume of minutes used is rather impressive. Here are the stats….

Records can be made, broken and created. ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz created a new one yesterday: interviewing the most NCAA Tournament coaches in one show. Katz set out to talk with all 65 coaches during the five-hour ESPNU Coaches Spotlight: College Basketball Special on ESPNU. He ended up getting 63 head coaches and California assistant Jay John on the phone, missing out only on Cal State Northridge’s Bobby Braswell who had a conflict. Interesting nuggets:

– Katz and show producers made approximately 175 calls and reached 47 voicemails in their effort.

– He interviewed four coaches in eight minutes (Syracuse, American, Tennessee and Illinois);

– Fifteen of the 64 interviews happened in the final hour of the show;

– With time of the essence, calls to the Syracuse biology department were not on the agenda, but that is what happened — and multiple times — during attempts to interview Coach Jim Boeheim. They eventually found him; and only two minutes behind schedule.

Wow….that all seems so….unnecessary?

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