In the warmups before last Saturday’s West Virginia – Notre Dame game, a basketball hit CBS announcer Verne Lundquist in the face. A similar situation popped up during game action in Sunday’s South Carolina – Florida Elite Eight matchup, but Lundquist was ready for it this time:
Verne used his hands to catch this one. #Elite8 pic.twitter.com/OynpYhLRyw
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 26, 2017
That’s a nice catch from Lundquist there, and the banter between him and analyst Jim Spanarkel (Lundquist goes “My nickname in high school was ‘Hands,’ and Spanarkel responds “You didn’t pass it very quickly, though, you hung onto it,”) is great. It’s good to see the 76-year-old Lundquist showing some impressive reflexes and staying on the ball, even if this one wasn’t necessarily going to hit him. This also brought some solid levity to the broadcast,more of which came later when Lundquist incorrectly referenced Georgetown rather than Gonzaga:
“The winner of this will take on Georgetown”. Glad Verne (or his spotter) caught this pretty quickly. https://t.co/EYkvw1vANI
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 26, 2017
These clips both show off the strong chemistry between Lundquist and Spanarkel, who have done a nice job together throughout this tournament. Whether catching flying balls or catching slipups, the broadcast booth delivered plenty of entertainment Sunday.
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