For Gus Johnson, the Preparation Is More Important Than the Voice - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

I think I speak for nearly all college basketball fans when i say I love hearing Gus Johnson calling games in March. His enthusiastic inflections make him perfect for the frenzied pace of the Big Dance, and in my view he's the best play-by-play man on CBS: Better than the announcer the CBS brass thinks is its best, Jim Nantz.

But while that excitable voice is what Johnson is best known for, he puts an enormous amount of preparation into his job before he ever speaks a word into his microphone. Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune reports on the color-coded charts Johnson makes with all the pertinent information about every team he's going to see:

His work began in earnest Tuesday, when he spent about 90 minutes on each of his four charts. Each team gets a side of the folder-and two Sharpies. For George Mason, it's green and yellow to match the team's jerseys.

Then Johnson scribbles in stats and notes on the top 12 players. Before calling the March 1 Georgetown-Marquette game, Johnson wrote the following on seldom-used Marquette guard Scott Christopherson: "smart, fundamental" and "die-hard Packers fan (Favre)."

He learned the technique from Greg Gumbel, and when asked if he could have a CBS researcher do the work for him, Johnson said he didn't even know.

"You have to do your own work," he said. "I'll tell you, if I'd studied in high school like I do for these games, I would have gone to Princeton."

Johnson also sat in on practices for all eight teams he'll broadcast, and he said he stays up until 5 a.m. watching the teams on DVD. The voice is what he's known for, but the preparation is what got him here.