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Clark Kellogg will talk "spurtability," teams that have a knack of scoring in spurts.
He'll blurt, "Take it to the rack, big fella!"
He'll see players who are "squeezing the orange" and creating "twine music."
And he'll comment on teams that have a "high volume" of something, most likely free throws or turnovers.
Aah, it doesn't get any better than this time of year, the time of year when the words "madness" and "dancing" are used to describe the same thing, the time of year when Special K - and now, Greg Gumbel - pull all-day shifts in CBS's New York studio and become guests in your living room.
It's NCAA basketball tournament time.
The NFL playoffs? Close. The NBA playoffs? Don't waste your breath.
Nothing compares with the electricity the NCAA Tournament creates.
Where the NCAA Tournament beats all other postseasons is, as Special K would tell you, the "high volume" of games. You can watch college basketball from noon 'til 5 in the afternoon then from 7 in the evening 'til 1 in the morning.
If you have DirecTV, you can fill in that 5 to 7 gap. The west coast CBS affiliate on DirecTV carries a game then.
You can't watch 16 NFL games or baseball games, one right after the other and some at the same time, in a day. That's what makes the NCAA Tournament so special. You can do that because games are shown from Hartford, Conn., to Boise, Idaho. Non-stop.
Now we're just getting over the bubble talk. We hear about bubbles bursting for 21-7 Ball State, 20-11 Dayton, 20-10 Iowa, 15-13 Wake Forest (brutal schedule), 19-8 Hawaii, 20-11 Alabama-Birmingham and 20-9 Southern Mississippi.
I thought the committee did its best job in recent memory. The only team that sneaked in that should have been locked out was 17-13 Florida State.
Ball State should be in.
Ball State won the Mid-American Conference in the regular season with a 14-4 record, went 21-7 overall and has a special player in surefire top seven NBA lottery pick Bonzi Wells. Ball State beat No. 4 seed Ole Miss, which has a 22-6 record, and No. 13 seed Butler, which has a 22-10 record. Ball State also smashed Pella Windows (look it up), although I have a sneaking suspicion the NCAA selection committee doesn't care much about that win.
But Ball State's not in.
Western Michigan, which finished second to Ball State in the MAC and had a 20-7 overall record, is in.
Ball State vs. Florida State, Ball State vs. Western Michigan, Indiana vs. Iowa, and fill in your teams of choice here, have sparked lively debates. Does the NCAA selection committee place entirely too much emphasis on schedule strength - the committee admits a team's RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) is oh so crucial -Êand not enough on head-to-head competition?
I don't think so.
But one of my non-sports bosses does, and we've been firing brickbats since last Friday. He says head-to-head results should be moved up higher on the selection committee's list.
The head-to-head argument works in other sports, but not in college basketball.
Problem is, you can't compare the NCAA Tournament to the NFL playoffs. How many times do NFL teams make the playoffs with a record under .500? It can happen in the NCAA Tournament, because teams like 13-16 Prairie View A&M receive an automatic bid just for winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
OK, Iowa beat Indiana twice this season. But 19-11 Indiana is dancing, while 20-10 Iowa sulks on the sideline without a partner. Both went 9-7 in the Big Ten.
Let me say this about that: Iowa, if you want to play with the big boys, put your toys down and climb on out of the sandbox. Play a big boys' schedule. No more tiddlywinks named Chicago State (2-25), North Texas (5-21), Drake (3-24), Rice (6-22), Weber State (14-12), Northern Iowa (10-17), Puerto Rico Mayaguez, St. Bonaventure (16-13) and Bucknell (13-14).
What the heck is a Bucknell, anyway? Since when did Weber become a state?
You won't find those teams on Indiana's pre-Big Ten schedule.
IU played No. 7 seed Temple (21-8), No. 2 seed Kentucky (29-4), No. 12 seed South Alabama (21-6), No. 14 seed San Francisco (19-10) and No. 11 seed Western Michigan (20-7).
That doesn't include Alabama-Birmingham and Hawaii, two teams headed to the NIT.
Indiana played two teams before the Big Ten season - Northeast Louisiana (13-16) and Notre Dame (13-14) - that finished under .500.
To me, it's simple. Iowa and Indiana played two games out of 30. But Iowa's pre-conference schedule was a nine-game joke.
Two versus nine. Go with the nine. Iowa, grab some bench.
You don't reward people for gorging themselves on cupcakes and cream puffs. Besides, I don't think Iowa was even that close.
Ball State, Dayton, Hawaii and Southern Mississippi stood ahead of Iowa in the line to the dance floor.
