Billy Packer Out At CBS

Whenever I defend Billy Packer, I'm accused of blindly supporting a Wake Forest guy. But, truth be told, I liked Billy Packer before I went to Wake, before I knew he went to Wake and after both of those things happened and I still forgot about him going there. So, I'm likely in the small minority here, but I'm going to miss Billy Packer during next year's Final Four.
Packer might be a crotchety old man, but he's a crotchety old man who knows college basketball and, more importantly, knows how to talk about college basketball. The 68-year old specialized in noticing the subtleties of the game that pass other announcers by. He discussed switches in defense and substitutions; he noticed changes in style coming out of timeouts and knew when games were slipping away from teams.
Above all, Packer was honest. It's something most sports fans look for in their announcers - always criticizing the fake broadcasters who don't tell it like it is - but when they got in in Packer, they resented him for it. Amazingly, Packer's CBS obit includes his declaration that "the game is over" when Kansas was up 38-12 early in its Final Foul game this year with North Carolina. That every single person watching that game was thinking the same thing is irrelevant. All that matters is that UNC made a run to cut it to four in the second half, before Kansas pulled away to win by 18. (As it turns out, Packer was right, which makes the hubbub all the more absurd. I realize the game wasn't over, but beyond Roy Williams, Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson, did anyone think Packer was wrong at the time? This is completely one of those "in retrospect" things; a statement that wasn't stupid at the time becomes stupid after events make it so. Could Packer have qualified his statement a bit? Yeah. "This game might be over," would have been better. Also, I understand why CBS would conceivably be upset. Packer saying the game is over seems to suggest that people could change the channel, which they never would have done in a 38-12 game without Packer's say so.)
It's not clear, but I'd assume Packer will still call ACC conference games for Raycom, which means those in the Mid-Atlantic will still hear his voice plenty, most noticeably during the first Duke-UNC game when ESPN's Dickie V-centric coverage is blacked out for the Raycom feed. Despite my appreciation of Packer's style, I'm not too upset he's out at CBS. It's better that he goes out now than starts to show signs of slippage like Pat Summerall, Sam Huff (in the Redskins radio booth) and many before him. No, my disappointment is in CBS's replacement for him.
Clark Kellogg is a fantastic studio man for CBS. He and Greg Gumbel have effortlessly made coverage of the first, crazy weekend of the NCAA Tournament a breeze. To break up that pairing in order to put Kellogg on the game's biggest stage is a gamble.
All I remember about Kellogg's color broadcasting is that I don't remember much about it. That might not be a bad thing, maybe he'll grow into his role with Jim Nantz. However, the domino effect of losing Packer, replacing him with a possibly-blasé-sounding Kellogg and replacing Kellogg with a former college player who is about as articulate as a cross between Rick Spielman, Chris Singleton and Orestes Destrades could be a disaster for the network's Tournament coverage.
I'd say "game over" for CBS, but given the circumstances, maybe I'll hold off on that for a bit.