'With a little kiss': Bill Raftery will be delivering his catchphrases during Marquette's Sweet 16 matchup
As Marquette advances in the men's NCAA Tournament, a new television audience will arise and inevitably many will be asking, "Who is this guy with all the quick catchphrases calling the game?"
College basketball fans will know the voice as former coach and longtime color commentator Bill Raftery. Wisconsin fans got a taste of Raftery in the first round.
Marquette faces North Carolina State in the Sweet 16 on Friday with tip-off scheduled for 6:09 p.m. on CBS. Raftery is on the call with Ian Eagle and former Duke great Grant Hill.
The former head coach of Farleigh Dickinson and Seton Hall, Raftery has been announcing college basketball games since 1983 for Turner Sports/CBS, ESPN and Fox Sports. He had been calling the Final Four with Hill and Jim Nantz for roughly the last decade, until Nantz stopped calling college basketball last year. You can find Nantz in the crowd this March cheering on his alma mater Houston.
Raftery continues on with Eagle and delivers his one-liners and catchphrases as only Raftery can. The quotes are seared into the mind of someone who's watched college basketball the last 40 years-plus.
"Onions!" for when a shot is made late in a close game. "With a little kiss!" for when a shot banks in. "Send it in, big fella!" for when a large human being makes a slam dunk. And, "A little nickel-dimer!" for when he believes the action didn't warrant a foul call.
There is also that quick riff of catchphrases Raftery makes just after the ball is tipped. It sounds like "nonsense," said one Reddit user. It's sometimes hard to distinguish between actual words and gibberish as Raftery spits it out.
Raftery filed trademarks for his most famous lines, "Onions," and "With a kiss" in 2014 and began selling T-shirts three years later once he successfully obtained the rights.
Raftery, 80, told The Athletic earlier this year that he hasn't thought about retirement. "I never even thought about it, y’know? Never," he said. "I’m assuming that at some point somebody will say maybe you should pack it in. I hope that’s not for a while."
"I don’t consider it work,” he said. "I know it sounds corny, but I feel fortunate that people still let me do it. I think it keeps you young. We all have friends who retired too young. I don’t know if I could stop working and play golf every day. I don’t even want to think about it, to be honest with you."
Marquette hopes to continue to cross paths with Raftery, who would be part of their TV broadcast all the way through the championship game.
More: Fifty years after they met for the NCAA championship, Marquette will face NC State again
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bill Raftery will be on the call for Marquette's Sweet 16 matchup
