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ESPN Subjects Longhorns Viewers to Worst Broadcast of Year

By James Caldwell

Dec 7, 2016; Boulder, CO, USA; American retired basketball player and current Pac 12 Networks analyst Bill Walton interviews a college athlete prior to the game between the Xavier Musketeers against the Colorado Buffaloes at the Coors Events Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 7, 2016; Boulder, CO, USA; American retired basketball player and current Pac 12 Networks analyst Bill Walton interviews a college athlete prior to the game between the Xavier Musketeers against the Colorado Buffaloes at the Coors Events Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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ESPN irritated Texas Longhorns and Kansas Jayhawks fans for two hours with Bill Walton calling a Big 12 game on Saturday night.

Somehow, Bill Walton ended up in Austin calling Texas Basketball’s biggest game of the season against #3-ranked Kansas. It was a painful experience.

Walton, the biggest defender of the Pac-12 “Conference of Champions,” spent the better part of the game trying to figure out which teams were in the Big 12. He even acted dumbfounded that TCU is in the conference.

And, his co-broadcaster Dave Pasch spent most of the game trying to get Walton to pick the best team in the Pac-12 out of UCLA, Arizona, and Oregon. Pasch went back to the topic of the Pac-12’s elite teams several times, but Walton would never give an answer.

Meanwhile, Texas and Kansas battled a tightly contested game that saw Texas make a late run at the Jayhawks. But, Kansas’ maturity, execution, and ballhandling skills were the difference in the game.

How Did Bill Walton End Up In Austin?

It was painful enough watching another Big 12 basketball game taken over by Big 12 referees, but it was even more painful listening to Bill Walton ramble about Los Angeles and its notoriously inefficient LAX airport.

Pasch, who is usually a solid broadcaster, admitted that he was working on two hours of sleep after catching a red-eye to Austin to call the game. He was in no mood to reel in Walton.

ESPN usually tucks Walton away on the late-night Pac-12 games so only West Coast fans have to listen to him. But, there he was at the Erwin Center acting like he just found out about the assignment.

ESPN tried to make up for Walton’s lack of knowledge of the Big 12 by showing him talking to Kansas’ players on the court before the game. Why an ESPN broadcaster is allowed to give a team a pep talk before a game is baffling in its own right.

But, Walton followed that up by noting that he called Texas head coach Shaka Smart by the wrong name during their pre-game conversation.

Walton also added awful animal sound effects going into most commercial breaks. And, he rambled about his perception of Austin being full of “chaos and terrorists” before he arrived, then found it’s actually a very nice city. He even changed into a “Keep Austin Weird” t-shirt from Texas Football coach Tom Herman, who was hosting an important Junior Day for Texas Football.

At the end of the day, though, this was a complete mess of a TV broadcast. It was like someone invaded the neat, little world of the Big 12 tucked away in the Central Timezone and had no idea where he was. And they gave this man a headset, TV time, and live microphone for two hours.

Next: Why UT Basketball Will Be National Title Contender In Two Years

Who knows what ESPN was thinking when they doled out the assignments for Saturday’s TV broadcasts. Apparently College GameDay being in Arizona for the UCLA-Arizona game changed things around. But, Bill Walton calling a Big 12 game should never happen again.

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