Some non-Farve breaking news, Billy Packer will not be back to call his 35th consecutive Final Four this upcoming season.

Let that sink in for a little bit.

From the Miami Herald via Awful Announcing:

CBS has decided to replace Packer, 68, with studio analyst Clark Kellogg on its lead announcing team.

An announcement is expected Monday, but CBS representative Leslie Anne Wade confirmed the story Sunday night. CBS believed the time was right for a change and that Kellogg deserved a chance to work with Jim Nantz on the lead team. Packer, who had been going year to year with his contract, confirmed through a CBS official Sunday that he no longer will broadcast for the network but is pursuing other projects in basketball. Packer declined to comment further.

I suggest those "other projects" be watching basketball from home on your couch. The game of basketball and the Final Four itself had outgrown Packer for sometime now, and I believe that this is long over due.

Packer will be replaced as analysis by Clarke Kellogg which isn't as great as Bill Rafferty would be, but for now I think we should just enjoy no more Packer before we criticize Kellogg.

No matter what kind of controversy, be it saying that Charlie Rose was fagging out, admitting that he wasn’t much of a sports fan, saying that Gerald Henderson’s shot to Hansbrough nose wasn’t an intentional foul, or even telling everyone that the Kansas vs. UNC Final Four game was over with 7:21 seconds left in the 1st half, Packer continued to be employed by CBS.

This could not be better news during the slowest sports time of the year. So for those of you having a rough Monday, just remember that on the next Championship Monday, no Packer. For now, enjoy this video of what could have happened if Billy Packer had never called that first Final Four:

At this point, I wouldn’t blame Hoosier Nation if they all became a bunch of fatalists. I mean, their hoops program is screwed.

Monumentally screwed.

I’ll set my Big Blue Blinders aside for a moment and recognize the unassailable truth that men’s basketball at Indiana University is absolutely one of the big boys, right there with UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, and Duke. It is a school of tradition and legends. It has produced success in both the proverbial then and now. It has a massive following and is in the state of all basketball states. But all of that seems trivial considering where men’s basketball at Indiana University finds itself now—down in hole, little light, and a long climb out.

I’m a veritable UK diehard. I’m a UK diehard, and Kelvin Sampson can kiss my ass. Kelvin Sampson was a Category 5 hurricane and he wove a path of destruction that might as well have razed Assembly Hall to the ground. What Kelvin Sampson did wasn’t “unforgivable” or “shameful” or whatever other paltry adjective has been assigned to his actions—it was a mortal sin. He completely desecrated something that isn’t merely a basketball team; as it has been said before, basketball is “a way of life” in Indiana. There’s God, there’s corn, there’s IU basketball. There’s so much more to the state, for it is full of charm and its citizens are as kind and welcoming as any that can be found in this country, but at the end of the day, that’s Indiana. And for Kelvin Sampson to so recklessly cast that aside is so careless, so egregious, so atrocious, it should be punishable by banishment from the game by the basketball gods.

I’m fully aware it’s July, but my ire has again been stirred by the latest news that IU will lose an additional two basketball schollies next year due to the program lagging in the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate (APR, not the financing). The consequences of this measurement have much to do with the program’s recent exodus of players, but as IU assistant A.D. Frank Cuervo said last week, “in terms of reasons, it’s not necessarily due to just players leaving.” Incoming coach Tom Crean put it as mildly and benignly as possible when he hinted at the wake of Hurricane Sampson, saying he “inherited a tremendous amount of dysfunction.”

I reside in this state, and word travels fast. I’ve heard the stories of how Sampson could’ve given two [you know what] if his players showed up to class; compare that with the Bob Knight era, when missing class meant wind sprints at practice until your lunch had been vomited on the ground. It may or may not be true, but if anyone is falling in line to lend Sampson an ounce of credibility, I’ll walk past, and I won’t look back.

Yes, Indiana’s athletic department is partially culpable for this disaster, because if Sampson had never been hired, blah blah blah. But even with Sampson’s past infractions in mind, to think that someone could stoop to this level and be this stupid would be nothing but an insult. Well, let the insults pour down like rain, because stupid is as stupid does.

I’ll never “root” for Indiana, but I’ll certainly support the program’s ascension up the mountain from which it’s fallen so far. Kentucky went down this road two decades ago and it was insufferable for its fans. The journey will likely be as difficult for Indiana. But I look forward to someday seeing Tom Crean and Billy Gillispie match wits in a battle of top ten powerhouses at Rupp and at Assembly while Kelvin Sampson watches on a monitor in the basketball gods’ prison. Whether that be from the bench of the Milwaukee Bucks where he currently assists (ironically, Indiana native) Scott Skiles or somewhere else, I could care less, as long as he’s not within sniffing distance of the college game he so irresponsibly vandalized.

He screwed Indiana. It’s time for him to get his.