Dave Eanet is called the "Voice of the Wildcats" for a reason

WGN radio sportscaster Dave Eanet starts his journey to Welsh-Ryan Arena around two-and-a-half hours before any Northwestern men’s home game, depending on traffic. At his courtside perch 120 minutes before tip-off, Eanet reviews his personal collection of team statistics, interviews Chris Collins for his pre-game segment and watches the players during their shootaround.

Then the fans start to arrive – Eanet’s favorite time of any game day. Tension, emotions and energy in Welsh-Ryan slowly build up and up, and then up some more. When the clock hits quadruple-zero and the referees toss the ball into the air, Eanet feels like the tension is released. His mind is clear and he’s focused on producing the clearest and most descriptive broadcast he can.

Eanet’s preparation begins with an excel spreadsheet, and he compares his method to studying for a final. After every game, he updates a Northwestern-specific Excel spreadsheet with points, fouls, shooting and every other stat one can think of. Then he does this for every other Big Ten team. In a world with KenPom.com, cameras that continuously track the ball and all players nearby, and for-sale analytics, Eanet still keeps it old school.

But having an old school approach doesn’t mean he’s out of touch with reality. As a sportscaster doing play-by-play for modern radio, Eanet knows his audience well. His listeners may be driving home from work or they’ve got their headphones in and are listening to his broadcast on their phones. The point is, Eanet understands he may be in the background, and tries to paint the simplest picture he can: What's the score? Where on the court is the action taking place? Who is involved?

“You can get caught up in minutia,” Eanet said. “I try to be as clear as possible...Is it a three pointer? Is it a mid-range jumper? Is it a drive on the baseline?...You don’t want to complicate it, because you don’t want to mess it up. You want to call it so that everyone that’s listening understands what’s happening.”

Despite this professional desire to create a clear broadcast, Eanet finds that people forget play-by-play is his job. He does remember when it was just a hobby, when he did pretend play-by-play for neighborhood basketball games as a boy, and he calls that “easy.” Now he has the pressure of calling last-second shots correctly. Now he calls Alex Olah “Olah for Northwestern” because he knows some viewers aren’t Wildcat fans.

“I’m not going to the games just because I want to go to the games,” Eanet said. “I love being there, I love the environment...but I’m trying the do the best job I can, and I put a lot of work into it.”