Your 2019 NCAA Tournament broadcaster rankings

Mar 23, 2019; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; View of a basketball with the March Madness logo before the game between the Baylor Bears and the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the second round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

By Joe Lucia on 03/28/201907/08/2020

This year’s NCAA Tournament broadcaster grades are in, and…they’re nearly identical to last year, with one small change.

Compared to last year, six of the eight teams had a higher overall score. There was actually one tie in the voting, and I had to take it out to four decimal places to break it (and even then, we’re talking about a score difference of 0.0002). We had over 13,000 votes for the eight broadcast teams, and the average score was a strong 2.89.

For context: three of the NCAA Tournament crews had higher scores than the top-rated NFL broadcast crew from November. The five (!) play by play broadcasters that call the NFL on CBS and also called the NCAA Tournament all drew higher scores for their college hoops work than for their NFL work. Five of these eight crews had higher scores than the top-rated MLB Postseason crew from our rankings last October. And when you roll it all the way back to last August, three NCAA Tournament crews achieved higher scores than the highest-rated MLB crew, and six MLB crews had lower scores than the lowest-ranked NCAA Tournament team.

Brian Anderson, featured in the two MLB polls and the NCAA Tournament one, picked up his best score in this post you’re reading right now.

Here are the full vote tallies for all eight broadcast crews.

Onto the rankings!

2. Jim Nantz, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery, and Tracy Wolfson – 3.3588

Last year: 3.34 (third of eight)
Most popular grade: A (59.36% of votes)
Body of work: Oklahoma-Ole Miss
Gardner-Webb-Virginia
North Dakota State-Duke
UCF-VCU
UCF-Duke
Oklahoma-Virginia

1. Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, and Jamie Erdahl – 3.57

Last year: 3.56 (first of eight)
Most popular grade: A (68.50% of votes)
Body of work: Yale-LSU
Belmont-Maryland
Abilene Christian-Kentucky
Seton Hall-Wofford
Maryland-LSU
Wofford-Kentucky

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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8. Carter Blackburn, Debbie Antonelli, and John Schriffen – 1.93

7. Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas, and Lisa Byington – 2.31

6. Spero Dedes, Len Elmore, Steve Smith, and Ros Gold-Onwude – 2.61

5. Brian Anderson, Chris Webber, and Allie LaForce – 2.90

4. Brad Nessler, Jim Jackson, Steve Lavin, and Evan Washburn – 2.95

3. Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, Reggie Miller, and Dana Jacobson – 3.3586

2. Jim Nantz, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery, and Tracy Wolfson – 3.3588

1. Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, and Jamie Erdahl – 3.57

About Joe Lucia