Tag: Jay Bilas

Analyst Jay Bilas ranks Kentucky basketball as a top 15 team

Kentucky basketball is ranked as a top 15 team by ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas.

The college basketball season is finally underway, and there are any number of sets of rankings that people use to try and rank the team. On Thursday, ESPN analyst Jay Bilas released “The Bilas Index” with his thoughts on the subject.

Kentucky basketball just made the top 25 in the USA Today Sports Coaches Poll and the AP Top 25. However, Bilas likes the Wildcats a bit more. He has them as the number 15 team overall.

Related: Mark Pope praises assistant Jason Hart

Bilas points out the influence of Mark Pope as a big reason for their ranking, as well as their experience:

(Mark) Pope is an offensive genius, and there will be 3s raining down in Rupp all season. Pope is a positive influence and thinker, but he does not have a superstar or surefire NBA draft pick on this completely new roster. What he has is loads of very good, very skilled players who can shoot the ball, and that will be nothing but fun.

Bilas specifically pointed out the shooting ability of Jaxson Robinson and Koby Brea, while lauding Otega Oweh as a defender. He had plenty to good to say about this year’s Wildcats, and clearly thinks highly of their potential.

Here’s every ESPN NBA announcer for the 2024-25 season

ESPN’s NBA crew features some familiar names.

ESPN is broadcasting NBA games for a 23rd consecutive year this season, and the announcers set to rotate between games will be familiar to many fans, with the team of Mike Breen, Doris Burke and Cassidy Hubbarth getting joined by Richard Jefferson (at least to start the season). JJ Redick is off the top team given that he’s coaching the Lakers now.

Although we wish we could list the announcers for every game, that’s impossible, especially when there’s some mixing and matching throughout the season.

That said, here’s a look at ESPN’s entire lineup of broadcasters, including play-by-play announcers, analysts and sideline reporters.

Play-by-play

  • Mike Breen
  • Michael Grady
  • Mark Jones
  • Dave Pasch
  • Ryan Ruocco

Analysts

  • Cory Alexander
  • Jay Bilas
  • Hubie Brown
  • Doris Burke
  • Richard Jefferson
  • Tim Legler
  • Bob Myers
  • Stephanie White

Sideline reporters

  • Katie George
  • Angel Gray
  • Cassidy Hubbarth
  • Monica McNutt
  • Lisa Salters
  • Jorge Sedano

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Jay Bilas leaves Michigan State basketball off ‘what-if’ list for 2020 NCAA Tournament

Jay Bilas left MSU off his list of the biggest ‘what-ifs’ about the canceled 2020 NCAA Tournament

The 2020 NCAA Tournament was famously canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to that, it will always be one of the biggest ‘what-ifs’ in college basketball history, as multiple teams felt they had a good shot to make a run at a championship.

College basketball analyst Jay Bilas made a list of his biggest ‘what-ifs’, and one team, the 2020 Michigan State basketball team, didn’t get a single mention in his list, which included San Diego State, Kansas, Gonzaga, Dayton, and Baylor.

This will definitely irk a lot of Michigan State fans, as many who watched that team, which featured a fully developed duo of Cassius Winston and Xavier Tillman, won a share of the Big Ten title that year (the Big Ten Tournament was also canceled), and many in the MSU world felt that the team was poised to make a run. Michigan State even won in a simulation of the tournament from ESPN.

Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan state news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Andrew Brewster on Twitter @IAmBrewster.

Former Duke basketball player Jay Bilas gives speech to Blue Devils before 2024-25 season

Check out the speech Jay Bilas gave to Cooper Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils ahead of the 2024-25 season.

[autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] and the Duke Blue Devils will need to manage national championship expectations in Durham this season, and a former Duke basketball star recently spoke to the team about how to handle those goals.

Jay Bilas, the ESPN analyst who played for the Blue Devils from 1982-86, posted a video of his speech to social media on Monday as he compared a title quest to the summer jobs he worked with his father.

Bilas said he would climb ladders all the way to the roof while carrying what his dad needed for work. Let’s just say he needed to alter his approach over time.

“I decided, in my infinite wisdom at age 19 or 20, that the more stuff I carried up the ladder, the fewer trips I had to take,” Bilas said. “So I loaded myself down with materials and I was climbing the ladder, but midway up, I took a spill and fell off the ladder.”

Bilas told the Blue Devils that his father advised him to concentrate more on the task at hand, boiling his point down to the idea of taking things one step at a time, before connecting it to the upcoming basketball season.

“You’re not going to win the national championship today,” Bilas said. “It’s not being played today. But you’re going to put yourself in position to win it by what you do today.”

https://twitter.com/JayBilas/status/1843303828722270429

Fans can watch Bilas’s full speech on the Duke basketball YouTube channel here.

Jay Bilas offers final assessment of Bronny James minutes before NBA draft

Jay Bilas stressed one point above all others: Bronny James needs time to grow into an NBA-ready player.

The 2024 NBA draft began just after 8 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night. Minutes before the draft’s official start — just before 7:50 p.m. Eastern inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn — ESPN NBA draft analyst and college basketball commentator Jay Bilas offered a final set of remarks on Bronny James.

Bilas emphasized the point that Bronny James went through health problems last year and endured a truncated college basketball season at USC. Those realities limited the amount of time he has been able to spend on the court, training to become a better and more complete player. Skepticism about Bronny is less about how good he is, more about the simple fact that he just hasn’t played a lot of live basketball since leaving high school. He chose to enter the draft now instead of playing a second year of college basketball. In doing so, Bronny limited his draft ceiling. Does that mean he won’t amount to a good NBA player? It’s more a matter of Bronny not being NBA-ready right now. Bilas recognizes this.

On the air for ESPN, just before the draft began, Bilas said Bronny will need “one to two years” in the G League before he is a fully NBA-ready player. A lot of analysts would agree with that view. Now we wait to see if the Lakers take Bronny at No. 55 in the NBA draft.

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Jay Bilas sounds off on NCAA after deplorable N’Faly Dante decision

ESPN’s Jay Bilas sounded off on the NCAA after their denial of Oregon Ducks center N’Faly Dante’s appeal this past week.

It wasn’t long ago that Oregon Duck fans got some bad news about former All-Conference center N’Faly Dante, who had applied for an extra year of eligibility with the NCAA but had his request denied.

Then this week, after appealing the ruling, Dante once again had his appeal denied, officially ending his college career with the Oregon Ducks in an unceremonial fashion.

Oregon fans have been upset about this, but it seems that there is no person more publicly upset that ESPN’s Jay Bilas, who has been claiming all along that Dante should be given another year of eligibility if the NCAA is staying true to the message that they have always pushed.

Dante was looking for an injury hardship waiver since he played in just 12 games in 2019-20 and only six more in 2020-21. Oregon was hopeful since similar cases around the country were upheld, but Dante wasn’t as fortunate.

Ultimately, Bilas’ words won’t be able to change anything, but it is nice for Duck fans to know that he has their back, and they have every right to be frustrated at the ultimate decision.

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Jon Scheyer teases tougher summer to help new Duke basketball team bond

Duke coach Jon Scheyer told Jay Bilas in a Tuesday podcast that he has a plan to help his new team build camaraderie this summer: hard team practices.

During Tuesday’s episode of The Brotherhood Podcast, former Duke basketball player Jay Bilas sat down with head coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] to ask about how a coach builds camaraderie on a team with two returning players.

Scheyer, entering his third season as Duke’s head coach, laid out a simple plan: grueling workouts.

“What I’ve learned in my time at Duke,” Scheyer said. “You really bond by doing hard things together.”

The Blue Devils coach said previous summers at his program focused on individual work and easing back into form and shape. Instead, Scheyer said the offseason ahead of the 2024-25 season will revolve around harder work and conditioning and team exercises.

“We’re going to do things differently this summer,” Scheyer told Bilas.

“We’re going to challenge these guys.”

Scheyer has spent the entire offseason praising the competitive nature of his incoming recruits, especially No. 1 prospect [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag]. The Duke head coach already mentioned that no player was promised minutes or playing time ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Duke fans got their first look at Scheyer’s new squad during K Academy social clips last week.

Duke basketball teases some big upcoming guests for The Brotherhood Podcast

The Blue Devils shared some photos through social media on Thursday to get fans excited for future episodes of the team’s podcast.

The Brotherhood Podcast, a Duke basketball production that lets current and former Blue Devils talk about themselves and the team, might have some big guests in the near future.

The men’s basketball social media account shared two photos from the recording booth on social media Thursday, one of head coach Jon Scheyer and ESPN’s Jay Bilas and another of current Duke guard Caleb Foster and the Orlando Magic’s Paolo Banchero.

Bilas, who played for Duke from 1982-86, has become one of the biggest voices in college basketball over his last decade with the network.

Banchero, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NBA draft, played one season for the Blue Devils in 2022. He helped guide Duke to the Final Four in legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final season.

The first episode of The Brotherhood Podcast was released last July. Banchero and Bilas have not yet appeared on the program, but former Blue Devil stars like Grant Hill, Dereck Lively II, and Quinn Cook all have episodes on the channel.

It remains to be seen whether Banchero and Bilas appear separately or together, but all indications from channel history say they’ll each get their own turn in the spotlight.

Jay Bilas slams NCAA over ‘outrageous’ decision on N’Faly Dante eligibility

ESPN’s Jay Bilas seems to have N’Faly Dante’s back after his appeal was denied on Thursday.

Oregon Duck fans did not wake up to the news that they were hoping for on Thursday, with a report from CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein that former All-Conference center N’Faly Dante’s hardship waiver for another year of eligibility had been denied.

Dante played only 12 games during the 2019-20 season after having his eligibility approval delayed before suffering a knee injury then only played in six games in the following 2020-21 season after tearing his ACL. The medical hardship that Oregon filed was in relation to those two seasons.

The NCAA denied the waiver, and now they are finding themselves subject to criticism from one of the most well-known figures in college basketball — ESPN’s Jay Bilas.

Bilas was in favor of Dante getting another year of eligibility, claiming that he is “everything the NCAA claims it wants in an athlete.”

“Dante is a model athlete and person, wants to come back to play and advance his education, and has never asked his school for anything,” Bilas wrote on Twitter. “When the NCAA says ‘athlete welfare,’ it rings hollow. The NCAA needs to do the right thing…allow Dante his additional year.”

According to Rothstein, Oregon will appeal the ruling and continue to push for an additional year for the big man, but it appears to be an uphill battle at this point.

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Where does Jay Bilas think Duke ranks among the Sweet 16 teams?

The former Blue Devil ranked the 16 teams left in the men’s tournament, but how does he think Duke stacks up against Houston? Or the field?

Jay Bilas might be a former Blue Devil, but he doesn’t let his alma mater drastically change what he expects in March.

In his bracket at the start of the tournament, he had Duke losing to Wisconsin in the second round. On Wednesday of this week, he ranked the Sweet 16 teams and slotted Duke in as the eighth-best team left on the board.

Bilas praised the second-round win over James Madison, calling it Duke’s best game of the season after the Blue Devils shot 52% from the floor and 50% from three.

The Blue Devils play Houston on Friday for a spot in the Elite Eight, and while Bilas had the Cougars third in his power rankings, he acknowledged Duke might have more skill on paper.

“The game will hinge upon Duke’s physical and mental toughness, and its ability to absorb the physical challenge presented by Houston,” Bilas wrote. “Can Duke operate under that kind of physical stress?”

Bilas ranked Connecticut, his pre-tournament pick and the defending national champions, as the best team left. Purdue was second, followed by the Cougars. Arizona snuck in at fourth over North Carolina despite the Tar Heels being the No. 1 seed in their region.