The 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is upon us, as the bracket of 68 teams that will vie for a national championship was unveiled on Sunday afternoon, with the complete TV schedule for the first round arriving later in the evening.
Once again, the lead broadcast team will be Jim Nantz, Grant Hill, and Bill Raftery, with Tracy Wolfson on sidelines, as Nantz gets set to call his 32nd and final Final Four in Houston. While it’s Nantz’s last dance, there’s no indication that the 79-year-old Raftery will be ending his tenure as college basketball’s favorite voice, but every year is a good year to celebrate the finest in Rafteryisms.
April 3 will be the last time Bill opens the game with a “Jim Nantz, Grant Hill…the [insert team] come out in a little MANTOMAN” as Ian Eagle will fill Nantz’s seat in 2024. Along the way in March we can hope for some lingerie on the deck, puppies to get in order, a little kiss, and everyone’s favorite: ONIONS! To get us all ready for tournament time, CBS put out a three-minute video of Bill’s best ONIONS calls — some from March and some from elsewhere — that is truly a delight.
This month’s menu: ONIONS pic.twitter.com/UbHhE4EjFs
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) March 13, 2023
As Bill says, there are onions and then there are ONIONS. Sometimes we get them early, on rare occasion a double order, but the one March constant is somewhere along the way, onions get served up.