Basketball fans across the country treasure Kevin Harlan's emphatic and energetic style of play-by-play on television and radio. His voice is one of a kind, and his performance only improves when high-intensity moments develop on the court.
But it certainly hasn't been easy for Harlan, among countless other broadcasters, to call games away from the action and share raw emotion during the ongoing pandemic. There's nothing ordinary about doing play-by-play on a monitor, often in isolation.
"It's strange, because you're broadcasting to a national audience and you look around and you see the walls of your basement, and all the equipment that these people from CNN and Turner Broadcasting have come in and set up in our basement," Harlan told After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Wednesday. "It's weird. You don't see anybody except on screen. What we see on the screen is what we're broadcasting. So a lot of times, you can't see substitutions, you can't see something away from the ball. So, it makes it a little bit difficult.
"We're just glad to have games on, for sure. I'm not sure as the playoffs are upon us in a couple months, if we're going to be out in the field. My gut tells me that the protocols that will be in place and the different logistics that'll be necessary with all the different moving parts of an NBA playoff scheme, it'll probably necessitate we are still in the basement. But who knows, a lot of things can happen here. I'm just glad we're doing games..."
There's no doubt that Harlan appreciated calling March Madness games this month, as he was able to travel to Indianapolis and do play-by-play from inside the arena. It's still unclear when that traditional broadcast environment will return for good, but Harlan cherished the semblance of normalcy the NCAA Tournament offered.
"The NBA is always an honor to call, but being a part of this tournament that was just finished -- and Jim Nantz and crew will take it from here in the Final Four -- this was really something special," Harlan said. "What the NCAA pulled off I thought was miraculous. To have every program, 68 teams come here and be in their own little bubbles and abide by all the rules and protocols that were set, it's amazing that they've made it this far and done what they've been able to do. I'm so impressed on so many levels."
The entire basketball conversation between Harlan and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player below.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.