Mark Tillmon Does Color for MASN

[Oh My!]

I only got to watch the last 12 minutes of playing time last night, but I was wondering what other thought of Mark's commentary. For the part of the game I saw, his insight seems pretty sharp, as he noted during the telecast some of the flaws in the team's game that I am sure have been emphasized by Coach after the game. He noted poor FT shooting, Defensive Rebounding, and Turnovers as issues that need to improve for the Hoyas to succeed.

The one time I chuckled about his commentary was after a media timeout and ODU executed a nice play. Mark said something to the effect of: That's what you [coaches] want after you call timeout; you hope something good comes from the next play. The play was a GU foul on a strong drive to the hole, but ODU did not call the timeout. Nit-picky, yes, but I did chuckle.

[I Bleed Hoya Gray]

Anyone know who the play-by-play guy was? I didn't recognize him.

[DoubleOhHoya]

I am dumber for having listened to Mark Tillman last night. I should have muted the TV and listened to Chvotkin.

He was especially bad in the last five minutes of the game. Every time GU would make a mistake, he would indicate the game wasn't over, and we needed to be careful.

[lancasterhoyafan]

doubleohhoya said:

I am dumber for having listened to Mark Tillman last night. I should have muted the TV and listened to Chvotkin.

He was especially bad in the last five minutes of the game. Every time GU would make a mistake, he would indicate the game wasn't over, and we needed to be careful.

You and I both. That was brutal.

[lichoya68]

come on hes a hoya but he did say something about when we play bc which i hope will NEVER HAPPEN except to embarass them again in an ncaa game go hoyas beat fairfield DEHORN THE STAGS..

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

MASN is a good network to improve your game for someone like Tillmon. He isn't in mid-year form yet.

[sbgorms]

The entire MASN telecast was pretty bad. The broadcast technicals were on par with Jefferson Pilot circa 1985, while Tillman and Other Guy were less than stellar. About 5 minutes into the game I actually did consider turning off the sound--the only thing keeping me from doing that was my stereo not having an AM antenna. It really was that bad...lic caught the reference to preparing now for a tough Big East schedule against teams like BC, and it seems like there were bad references like that all night.

The whole MASN broadcast needs better production value, better coordination between producers and broadcasters, better homework by said broadcasters (it's like they blew all their prepped material in the first 10 minutes of the game while barely talking about the game, leaving them no material down the stretch), and better insight into the team, as they'll be doing this a decent number of additional times in the coming months.

[DoubleOhHoya]

did anyone notice the first audible comments from JTIII at the half were "ok, but make it fast"

horrible, horrible stuff.

I blame everything on Peter Angelos.

[Boz]

I love Tillmon as a Hoya, but he is not all that great a color guy. I think he did one of our games on MASN last year too.

He spouts a lot of truisms and standard language. He knows this Hoya team, so he also has some good player insights, but during game play, it's really just your basic information, nothing special.

And when he's on camera? Yikes. He looks more sweaty and uncomfortable than Mac trying to be a reporter on "It's Always Sunny. . ."

And let's face it, he was clearly rooting for the Hoyas. Now, I have to be fair. I rail on Sean McDonough for doing the same thing with Syracuse, and think that he should not be allowed to call Syracuse games. Honestly,when Freeman hit that three in the second half, Tillmon let himself get a little out of control.

I think with time, he could become a a good color commentator, but he's not there yet. And he's got to be more comfortable when the camera is on him (getting a better tailor probably wouldn't hurt either).

[hoyasexy]

The commentators are allowed to be homers for a local broadcast, which the MASN broadcast is. McDonough does national games, and the broadcasters on national games need to try to be impartial.

Besides, a commentator loses a great deal of credibility when he roots for Syracuse. That's best left to the privacy of one's own home.

[MCIGuy]

Mark did a few Hoya games for MASN last season so I'm surprised there's even a thread on this topic. He's not great but he knows the strengths of the team and knows the players pretty well.

I can't listen to Rich for more than two games straight so there's no way I was going to turn off MASN.

[hoyas2006]

MARK TILLMAN WAS HORRIBLE!

[Dhall]

Tillmon was horrible. The first line of every commentary was: "Definitely, [insert statement of play-by-play guy]." My favorite line of the night was "When you take the ball in the paint, you don't want to turn it over, you want to try and score."

[MCIGuy]

Still 20 times better than Fred Brown on HTS.

By the way....when Chvotkin calls a play in which a player steals the ball and then another player, according to his play-by-play, steals it back a second later do you ever think to yourself that you RARELY see such a sequence in a real game and yet Chvotkin makes that call at least ten times each contest? I could go on all day tearing into Chvotkin for the things he does that make me go batty and for many of his clearly inaccurate calls. But I'm not going to bash the man like that. Its unnecessary and would be plain cruel. I wish some of you felt that way towards Mark.

[I Bleed Hoya Gray]

Agreed MCIGuy. Either he'll improve or he'll be like Rich ...unique.

[mapei]

I really really like Rich.

Mark needs to get better. Both his style and substance were lacking. But I feel like being soft on him because he was a really good player and nice guy. As someone else said this is probably a good venue for him to begin in.

[idhoya]

I saw where Esh did a Mason game the other day.

[Elvado]

I assume Mark did the braodcast right handed, no?

[haydenmac]

mciguy said:

Still 20 times better than Fred Brown on HTS.

By the way....when Chvotkin calls a play in which a player steals the ball and then another player, according to his play-by-play, steals it back a second later do you ever think to yourself that you RARELY see such a sequence in a real game and yet Chvotkin makes that call at least ten times each contest? I could go on all day tearing into Chvotkin for the things he does that make me go batty and for many of his clearly inaccurate calls. But I'm not going to bash the man like that. Its unnecessary and would be plain cruel. I wish some of you felt that way towards Mark.

Let's put it this way - when someone "steals" the ball, they aren't necessarily being credited with a steal in the textbook definition of the ball, i.e. possession does not change/shot clock does not reset. Maybe instead of saying "steals" the word "strips" or "poke checks" might apply better. What else do you find that is clearly inaccurate?

[CAHoya07]

All I can say is that, production values aside, I'm glad that a majority of our non-nationally televised games are now on MASN.

Before MASN, we had NewsChannel 8, and aside from the fact that I couldn't get that channel as a student, it would only pick up games from ESPN Full Court. We were pretty much SOL until the conference season started. Now with MASN, they pick up all the Full Court games, plus do a few games of their own before the conference season starts - this year at ODU, Radford at McDonough, and American. If it's between MASN and nothing, I'll take MASN every time.

I really didn't notice Mark Tillmon being that bad, though I was talking with friends during much of the game. Finally, this is probably unrealistic, but I do hope that MASN gets HD sometime in the near future.