Tie-dye trio
ESPN debuted a new broadcasting combo on Thursday night.
It’s — at least, in our eyes — the A-team — Dave Pasch, Jay Bilas and the great Bill Walton.
And it certainly had the look of a Walton broadcast. Bilas, one of the top college basketball analysts at ESPN and an avid Young Jeezy fan, wore a tie-dye Grateful Dead T-shirt throughout the broadcast. That’s Walton’s favorite band, of course.
Walton also brought along a Grateful Dead figurine — it was the colorful dancing bears, which is famously part of the back cover on their album “History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. I (Bear’s Choice).”
Awful Announcing, a website that covers sports media, tweeted out some of the better Waltonisms — and one, uh, Paschism — from the broadcast.
Here’s a few of them…
“In the span of 3 minutes, Bill Walton just made a veiled reference to Colorado legalizing pot and the number of species of birds in Tucson.”
“A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle. ANOTHER timeout? They just had one” — The stream of consciousness that is Bill Walton
Dave Pasch: “If no one gets fired, we’ll be back for the second half.”
Want more Walton?
Visit Tucson.com to watch a dramatic reading of our favorite Waltonisms. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Bruce Pascoe say,”Throw it down, big man!” and Greg Hansen quoting the Grateful Dead.
Big number
31:30
Amount of time before UA center Kaleb Tarczewski grabbed his first rebound. The 7-footer finished with two.
Another big number
31:45
Minutes before Rondae Hollis-Jefferson scored his first points of the game, on two free throws. Those were his only two points, and he finished 0 for 3 from the field.
He said it
“I have full confidence in my team, and I think once we get these guys back in our house, we will win.” — Colorado guard Askia Booker, who scored a career-high 30 points. The Buffaloes will host Arizona on Feb. 26 in Boulder.
Redux of 2014?
Booker’s comments sound similar to those of Xavier Johnson from a year ago, when he guaranteed that Colorado would beat the Wildcats by 20 points.
They would lose to Arizona by 27 points, and then again in the Pac-12 tournament by 20.
To be fair, though, the Buffaloes competed pretty well for a team without two of its best players in the aforementioned Johnson, and Josh Scott, a talented big man.
Old friends, and family
Kevin Parrom made it back to McKale Center on Thursday night, the first game he’s been to this season.
Parrom, who graduated in 2013, started this last season playing in Finland but most recently was playing for a team in Mexico. He spent the 2013-14 season in the NBA’s D-League with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Also in the crowd: Nick Johnson’s brother Chris, a former UA walk-on.
Down in front
Colorado came out for pregame warm-ups about 20 minutes before tip but had to wait to start their layup line, as someone working with maintenance had a ladder posted up by the rim and he was up at the top, attaching some fancy robotic above-the-rim cameras for the ESPN broadcast.
When he saw them, he came down and got out of the way. Nice guy.
Happy birthday
Thursday marked Kadeem Allen’s 20th birthday. He wasn’t able to celebrate it in uniform, though — Allen, a juco transfer from Hutchinson Community College, is redshirting this season.
— Zack Rosenblatt
