Bill Raftery, Grant Hill To Call Final Four In Place Of Greg Anthony
NEW YORK (AP) -- Bill Raftery and Grant Hill will call the Final Four this season, a popular veteran and a rookie taking the place of the suspended Greg Anthony.
Raftery and Hill will work as analysts alongside play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz, CBS and Turner Sports said Tuesday. Anthony was suspended for the rest of the season Jan. 17 after he was arrested in Washington on charges he solicited a prostitute.
Raftery has been telling fans that defenses are in "man-to-man" or that a shot banked in "with a kiss" for more than three decades during the NCAA tournament. But this is his first Final Four for TV after 23 years of handling the radio call.
For Hill, it will be his first season as a game analyst during the tourney, when a replay of his gravity-defying alley-oop from the 1991 title game will no doubt be shown more than a few times. The 42-year-old Hill won two national championships at Duke, then played 19 seasons in the NBA before retiring and joining Turner Sports in 2013. He was a studio analyst during last year's tournament and works NBA games for Turner.
Anthony called his first Final Four last season after swapping spots with Clark Kellogg, who moved back to the studio show. He and Nantz joined Steve Kerr in a three-man booth. Kerr left broadcasting in the offseason for an NBA coaching gig with the Golden State Warriors, creating a potential opening on the Final Four team even before Anthony's suspension.
The 71-year-old Raftery joined CBS Sports in 1983. He spent more than three decades at ESPN before following the reconfigured Big East to Fox for last season.
Raftery and Hill will work alongside Nantz and sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson for the first time for the Big Ten tournament semifinals March 14 on CBS.
The NCAA semifinals in Indianapolis are April 4 on TBS and the national championship game is April 6 on CBS.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.
