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Ian Eagle Shares a Tremendous Nugget on the Viral Video From UConn-Duke Ending

The CBS play-by-play voice explains why he wasn’t part of the clip with Bill Raftery and Grant Hill.
Jimmy Traina|
Ian Eagle said he had trouble sleeping Sunday night after calling UConn’s improbable win over Duke.
Ian Eagle said he had trouble sleeping Sunday night after calling UConn’s improbable win over Duke. | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

1. UConn’s stunning win over Duke on Sunday is still the talk of the sports world, so I reached out to Ian Eagle, who nailed his call of Braylon Mullins’s game-winning three-pointer, on Tuesday about everything that went down in those final seconds and the aftermath.

In addition to nailing his call, Eagle along with his broadcast partners, Bill Raftery and Grant Hill, went viral for their reaction to the shocking finish.

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SI: How did the fact that there were .3 seconds left (later changed to .4 seconds) instead of it being a buzzer beater affect your call?

Eagle: I’ve done so many basketball games in my career that I’m now at a point where I’m hyperaware of the clock. I probably made a mistake early in my Nets broadcast career calling something for the win only to see tenths of a second remaining on the clock and it bugged me.

So, I just am very much focused on making sure that if it’s a true buzzer beater, you can call it as such. Of course, your first instinct is to say, “This is for the win” or “This is for the Final Four.” But I would’ve been very upset if I had said either one of those statements and there was still time remaining.

SI: What are the challenges that go into calling a wild ending like that when you also have to get two analysts involved?

IE: When it gets frenetic, my main objective is to just make sure that what you’re saying is correct. You have to quickly shift because the mentality initially is they’re going to foul. This is going to become a free throw shooting contest. And odds are, you will exhale and get a chance to reset. Once you realize that, no, that’s not happening, you quickly have to move into a different gear, which is stay on top of what’s happening in real time and whatever comes out of your mouth comes out of your mouth.

There’s no planning it. There’s no way of predicting how that’s going to go. But I do think leaning on experience and the fundamentals now come into play. Just cover the action. Accurately report what’s happening in front of you. That’s been the mantra for me, especially in those situations where it gets frenetic.

SI: Where does that game/moment/shot stand in your career as a broadcaster?

IE: I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime sequence. Because it’s not just the shot. It’s everything that led up to the shot. That’s what made it feel so miraculous. We’ve seen big shots in big moments. But it’s rare that you get that kind of play, bang-bang, defense-to-offense, so suddenly. And that’s where I think emotion shifts and you’re just trying to mirror what others are feeling and maintain control and be accurate.

When you start naming players, you better be right. There’s no delete button. There’s no backspace. There’s no second take. You get one shot. And that’s what makes the job so exciting as well.

SI: The video of your crew went viral. We only see you in it for a snippet, but what has going viral been like for you?

IE: The crazy part about that? I don’t remember the exact timing, but it was fairly late in the second half, a ball bounced toward us out-of-bounds. And it banged into the camera, and that’s a mounted camera for POV, point of view. And it shifted the camera over so that it’s primarily on Raftery and Grant and I was then out of frame. But we weren’t aware of that all. We don’t get the feed.

SI: So if that ball doesn’t hit the camera, you would’ve been in that video the whole time?

IE: Correct.

SI: Are you bummed you’re not as viral as Raftery and Hill?

IE: No, I’m not. I thought it was perfect for exactly what happened. I think the state of shock that people were feeling, it was illustrated by Raf and Grant’s very genuine and organic reaction.

SI: Did you have to explain to Raftery that he was going viral and what going viral means?

IE: No, no. He has kids and grandkids that keep him informed. So, nothing goes completely under the rug these days for Bill. There are a lot of checks and balances. He’s aware. He finds it funny and amusing that that would get any amount of attention at all.

SI: How f---ing good is Bill Raftery?

IE: Obviously, we’re at a place with me, Raf, Grant and [sideline reporter] Tracy [Wolfson] where we are very comfortable with one another, with the collaboration that we have. That’s what you hope for when pairings are made. When it now actually translates into friendship and tight-knit family feel, that’s when the trust factor is so high.

Nobody is a solo artist. We all recognize what Raf has meant to the sport of college basketball. And it’s respect. It’s just based on knowing that he has become synonymous not just with this event, but the sport. You’re talking about one of the greatest performers in NCAA tournament history in Grant Hill, you’re talking about Bill Raftery who has now spanned decades of chronicling the action. Tracy, who has now been in her position for an extended period of time. By the way, I thought her interviews at the end of the game were pure perfection, with both Mullins and [UConn coach Dan ] Hurley. And me, who has been working this event for 29 years, these moments, they stick with you.

I did not sleep well on Sunday night. The misconception is you, “Oh, you slept like a baby.” I didn’t. My mind was racing. My heart was still beating. I’m not even associated with the two teams. It’s just how the game transpired affects you in a very visceral way.

2. Good job by ESPN’s Seth Greenberg speaking to Danny Hurley and referee Roger Ayers about the incident on Sunday when Hurley got in Ayers’s face after Braylon Mullins hit a stunning three-point shot to give UConn a comeback win against Duke.

However, Greenberg’s presentation was so cringe.

All Greenberg had to say was that he spoke to both men and they each said that Hurley’s aggressive actions were nothing and it was just a celebratory gesture.

Instead, Greenberg used the fact that this became a story to attack social media and ramble on about a bunch of nonsense, such as Ayers is the best ref in college basketball and that Ayers reffed a lot of Greenberg’s games, that had nothing to do with this incident.

Greenberg said this only became a thing because social media tried to create something out of nothing because of Hurley’s “allegedly reputation.”

One, there’s no allegedly. The guy acts like a jerk during every single game. Two, this wasn’t something out of nothing unless Greenberg sees a coach putting his face against the referee’s face in every game.

3. NBC got off to a strong return in its return to airing Major League Baseball with 3.2 million viewers tuning into Thursday’s Diamondbacks-Dodgers game. It was the most watched Opening Day primetime game since 2017.

The viewership number is even more impressive when you consider NBC was going head-to-head with the NCAA tournament that night.

For some reason, we still haven’t gotten a viewership number for Netflix’s abomination of a broadcast last Wednesday for the Yankees-Giants season opener.

4. The Niners will open their season against the Rams in Australia on Thursday Night Football. San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan clearly did not want to get in trouble with the NFL for bashing the scheduling decision, so he gave a master class on sarcasm when he discussed the Week 1 adventure his team will have to embark on.

5. I’m probably going to dedicate an entry each day for the near future on the ABS Challenge because I love it so much.

Today, I learned that when position players are pitching, challenges cannot be made.

In addition, the Yankees are dominating the ABS Challenge System.

6. We dropped two SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcasts for you last week.

NBC’s Jason Benetti joined me to talk about becoming the voice of Sunday Night Baseball, getting called into emergency duty on the NCAA tournament, an unusual entry on his Wikipedia page and much more.

In addition, SNY broadcasters Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling appeared on the podcast to talk about their popularity among Mets fans, the unfortunate circumstances of getting shut out of the playoffs, analytics on a broadcast and more. Plus, Hernandez talked about Seinfeld.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: For old people like me who still have cable, we’ve been treated to a Curb Your Enthusiasm marathon on HBO this week. I watched this scene this morning while writing Traina Thoughts and still laughed continuously even though I’ve seen it a million times already.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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