Bill Raftery is as good as it gets in the world of broadcasting at slipping little jokes into games he’s calling. While his usual lines are iconic — everyone has screamed “ONIONS!” after a huge shot late in a game, for example — Raftery is ultra-clever, and is no stranger to saying things that makes folks laugh while they watch a college basketball game.
Raftery is, as usual, calling the Final Four alongside Jim Nantz and Grant Hill for Turner, and during the second game of the evening, the legendary broadcaster saw the opportunity to crack a pretty topical joke. Duke big man Mark Williams got a piece of North Carolina center Armando Bacot while the latter tried to possess the ball, which earned him a foul. A slow-motion replay gave everyone a better view of the incident, at which point Raftery couldn’t help but say “it’s not even the Oscars.”
Raff making an Oscars joke and someone couldn’t stifle the laughter (r @darrenelwood) pic.twitter.com/VEEKpsJ2NG
— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) April 3, 2022
The joke got a laugh out of someone at the broadcast booth, along with presumably thousands of people tuning in to watch the first Final Four matchup in the history of the rivalry between Duke and North Carolina. I’ll be honest: I did not expect Raftery to crack a joke referencing Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last Sunday during the biggest college basketball game of the season, but it’s probably safe to assume that he was sitting on that one all night and made it at the exact right moment.