Early Tuesday morning, ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Williams got a taste of how exhausting a 24-hour television marathon can be. Asked to draw “Duke” in a game of pictionary, he attempted to depict guard Grayson Allen tripping an opponent but wound up with… something else.
Live tv fail @RealJayWilliams pic.twitter.com/IfR4UJQahg
— RunTheBasesMLB (@RunTheBasesMLB) March 14, 2017
“It was extremely awkward, but it’s also cool that I have a tired moment on air,” Williams said Tuesday afternoon. “It makes for great fun. It’s a whirlwind.”
Williams was up late because ESPN is in the midst of its 24-hour Tournament Challenge marathon, which began Monday at 7 p.m. ET and stretches through Tuesday at the same time. Over the course of the day, the network has aired bracket-themed editions of various regularly scheduled shows, plus several Tournament Challenge specials featuring the College GameDay team: Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, Seth Greenberg and Williams, who spent Monday night wearing panda slippers.
Tuesday afternoon, an admittedly tired Williams hopped on the phone with Awful Announcing to tell us what March is like for a college basketball analyst and why he turned off his phone on Selection Sunday. Plus, he offered his (totally unbiased) national title pick.
Awful Announcing: All season you talk about college basketball, and some people care and others don’t. How does it feel at this time of year to know that everyone in America right now is focused on college hoops?
Jay Williams: It’s great for multiple reasons. It’s great because you have a lot attention and you get to be informative to people and help them along. It’s also great because you see the light at the end of the tunnel and you know you have three weeks of exhilarating basketball and then you go on vacation.
AA: What was your reaction when you found out ESPN was doing this Tournament Challenge marathon?
JW: It was kind of a love-hate reaction.
At first I got really, really excited for it because you think that we can all go back to the days when we’re 21 years old and we’re staying up all night long, watching sports and talking and making sense of what we’ve seen and what we think. And then you start thinking about what happens when I get tired. I slur my words.
You also have to factor in this whole social media, by the way. People love to remind you of what you just said or what you said an hour ago or four shows ago.
And the thing is, you get a lot of hypothetical scenarios. I was doing SportsCenter the other day—this is going on 48 hours for me, not 24 because yesterday I started doing [Good Morning America] in the morning and then that led into SportsCenter throughout the day and then this whole marathon. So I did SportsCenter the other day, and on my first segment they’re like, “Hey Jay, give us tips.” So my tip is I have every 10 beating a 7, and I don’t have any 12s over 5s this year. So I give my tip, and then we come back two segments later, and they’re like, “Hey Jay, give us a Cinderella.” And I don’t have any Cinderellas getting into the Sweet 16. So they said, “Ok, well give us a hypothetical Cinderella. Maybe you don’t have them in your bracket, but if you did, what’s a team that you could have getting to the Sweet 16?” So you have to kind of recalibrate and re-think of scenarios, and I said Michigan and gave an argument of Michigan getting to the Sweet 16.
And then I came back for the following segment, and they said, “We want to remind you of what you just said,” so they run a clip of when I said I have every 10 beating a 7, and Michigan of course is a 7. So they said, “You just made a case for Michigan to go to the Sweet 16.” And I’m like, “You guys just had me do this whole hypothetical thing!”
So people are allowed to kind of throw it in your face. And that’s just the way it is, even though you’re giving a hypothetical argument. So you have to expect the unexpected.
(Photo by Phil Ellsworth / ESPN Images)
AA: You’re used to talking about college basketball in terms of great players and exciting teams and fun matchups, but at this time of year all everyone wants to know is who they should pick in their bracket. Is that a different conversation for you as an analyst?
JW: Yeah, because if I knew every right pick, you think I would be working for ESPN? No, I’d be on my boat in the south of France because I’d be hitting the lotto every single year. So it’s one of these things where I try to balance, am I too informative? Do I know too much about these teams? Am I too overly analytical about every single decision? So it helps when the bracket comes out, I don’t have too much time to sit. I try to give my gut reaction, and I try to say, OK I know this team, this is not a bad matchup for them.
So it is frustrating. You try to tell people who’s going to win and by how much, but if I knew that, I would be a billionaire right now.
AA: So how do you usually do in bracket pools?
JW: I do pretty well. Last year I didn’t really participate as much. I gave my mother my picks, and she won multiple pools, which was pretty cool.
But I don’t really enter brackets to try to win money or enter brackets to gloat. I made that mistake earlier on in my career when I would try to say, “I’m going to win my bracket against my friends or in all these different office pools that my friends would try to put me in. Now I just stay out of it. I don’t know if I want to be embarrassed.
I’m not going around gloating about my bracket. If I get a couple right, you’ll hear me. But it changes each and every year, man. It’s fluid.
AA: Some people say they’d rather everyone didn’t fill out brackets and instead just enjoyed the games for the basketball. Do you agree with that?
A lot of my friends work in corporate America, and it’s amazing the gifts that are being given out. Companies giving out a million dollars per year, or you have a chance to meet the CEO and have lunch with him if you have the best bracket in your group. So I think there are a lot of different incentives that companies have.
Whatever it may be, it really brings everybody in. It’s the best part of the year for me because you get a chance to see a one-game [elimination] tournament. The best team doesn’t always win this thing, and it’s about being hot at the right time, and there are some of these miraculous runs that have everybody on the edge of their seats. So not only are you watching great games, but when you have a lot more that’s up for grabs, when you have your ego at stake, when you have your reputation at stake at work or with friends, it makes you put time and effort into this.
I turn my phone off Selection Sunday. I’ve done it every year for the past five years because I will have 2-300 texts from friends and people I haven’t heard from for the past year that say, “I need your help with my bracket.”
Last year I got a call from my friend Kyzer, who works for Jay Z. He literally called me on the phone with Jay Z and said, “We’ve got $50,000 up at stake. J-Will, what are we doing.” And I’m like, “I don’t want that kind of pressure. Keep me away from that.” So it gets pretty crazy and competitive.
AA: Yeah, you don’t want to be the one to mess up Jay Z’s bracket.
JW: No, I do not.
AA: I know if you knew this you’d be in the south of France, but I have to ask for your national title pick.
JW: I have Duke vs. North Carolina. I think they’ll meet for the fourth time. The last three were pretty epic.
And I have Duke winning the whole thing. And I think the internet might shut down if Duke and North Carolina played in the title game. So I don’t know, just the way the brackets work out, that’s my pick.
AA: I have to ask if there’s a little bias going on with that pick (given that Williams went to Duke and played for Mike Krzyzewski).
JW: No, I think that’s people’s natural reaction, but I’ve been hard on Duke this year. People forget what’s happened over the course of the year because people don’t pay attention. I’ve been the guy who disagreed with Coach K on Grayson Allen’s suspension after his third tripping incident. I wrote a letter openly to Duke. I thought Grayson should’ve been suspended by K for five games. I thought the ACC should have stepped in and suspended Grayson.
I haven’t thought this Duke team has been good all year. I thought Luke Kennard has been their best player, but I haven’t seen that performance from Harry Giles. It hasn’t been until the last three games or four games that I’ve seen them start to hit their stride.
And this is the first time I’ve ever picked Duke to win a championship in my 11 years working here at ESPN. So it’s funny how you say Duke and people say, “Oh, you’re a little bit biased.” And I say, well, no. That’s like the family member that you’re harder on because you know how great they are and what they’re supposed to achieve.
