NCAA tournament phrases that should be banned

Pretty much everyone who takes a crack at predicting the field is going to get at least 60 of the teams right. 31 are automatics, and most of the 34 at-larges are slam dunks. I got 63 of 65 right when I did my bracket on the Selection Sunday thread, and on the Bracket Project comparison site, one site had 64, a few had 62 and the other 20+ had 63.

 

Yeah, but the NIT stuff was pretty impressive, I thought. Of course, I don't really follow college hoops that closely (the team I cover's in no danger of making the NCAA Tournament anytime soon).

 

couple years ago, UCLA had twins Dave and Matt Ball, both defensive linemen. One time, they both got to the passer at the same time. The announcer shouts: It's a twin Ball sac (he probably meant sack)

 

"When you look at ..." prior to a discussion about a player, team, anything. I will credit Mel Kiper with coining this hook in his endless radio discussions about the NFL draft, but it has somehow seeped into every studio discussion about every sport.

 

That joker prefaces just about every sentence with \"you look at.\"

 

One that has been bothering me for a while now is when someone is discussing teams and they say, "You take a Texas or a USC." I don't understand that. There aren't multiples of those teams. You can't pick from them. Why not say "You take Texas or USC." I know they probably mean teams of similar caliber, but it doesn't sound right.

 

We had a columnist who always insisted on writing it that way, and also using phrases like "when Ohio State plays the USCs and the Michigans ..." drove me crazy.

 

The way I look at some of this stuff, especially from the repetition standpoint, is like sports departments at papers are all working in a car factory. And we're putting the doors (annoying phrases like Big Dance, for instance) on. Over and over again throughout February and March, we've got to put the doors on the cars (papers), every day. It just doesn't stop, and gets damn annoying. By the middle of March, it's as though if one more damn door has to go on, screw the car. It's going out military.

But people like their doors, especially in March, because they don't have to see them as much. For the ordinary Joe, a door is awesome. Even for the guy who drives 200 miles a day, doors = great (exempting UPS, of course).

Enough with the metaphor. For as much as we see stuff like Big Dance, Cinderella, etc, readers don't and I would posit most get a kick out of it this time of year-or just act indifferently.

 

OH MY!!!!

 

Exactly. I'm not saying we should pepper or stories with cliches, obviously, but we certainly worry about things like this far more than the readers.

 

"He didn't call the bank" on a banked shot. Or just "he didn't call it".

Even good announcers fall prey to it. STFU with that crap. Who the hell calls a bank and why should they have to? This isn't fucking HORSE.

 

What is still the most annoying phrase in announcer speak is "score the basketball" or "score the ball."

As if you score points with any other object in the game.

What is the difference between someone who can "really score the ball" and someone who can "shoot," or someone who can "score?"