Posted: Thu March 26, 1998 at 10:05 AM ET

I have heard too much Billy Packer. I have seen too many commercials featuring a bodyguard for a refrigerator full of Bud Light, or a bunch of '70s retro hippies singing about a vehicle called the Amigo, or a guy who opens his garage door to show Paul Reiser he has put stickers on his bulldog. I have sat through too many 20-second -- no wait a minute, now it's a full -- timeouts.

The Final Four finally arrives this weekend. Just in time. I have not only put on my game face, but it has been anchored down with nuts and bolts, secured firmly with Elmer's glue. My game face is grumpy.

The games have been great, better than ever -- that three-pointer by the coach's son from Valparaiso and that falling-down put-back by UConn's Richard Hamilton and those comebacks by Kentucky and Stanford--- but there has been a lot of bread to eat to get to the meat in the sandwich. Do you know what I mean? I sort of feel like Dean Smith, sitting behind that CBS anchor desk, a speechless lump. (C'mon. He has to know more about basketball than he's telling us. Don't you think?)

Too much. Too many words about that plucky little Wojo from Duke. Too much praise for Rick Majerus' triangle and two against Arizona, a defense that any junior high coach would try against a team led by two killer guards. Too much of the Harrick family and the Tubby Smith family and Antawn Jamison, whoa what a talent. Too much. Too much Billy Packer.

He is always an irritant, this man, but he is much worse in large pompous doses. He delivers his words as if he were speaking from the top of Olympus to the masses, proclaiming certain coaches as geniuses for calling "a great timeout" or noticing that "so-and-so is exhausted" five minutes into a game when "so-and-so" is 19 years old, at the end of seven months of action and conditioning, and able to run from here to Timbuktu without getting tired. Too much nonsense. Too much.

Bring on the final act, the Final Four. Please.