A few nights ago, I was still up late at night and happened to stumble upon an Australian basketball game online.

It was late night on the West Coast in North America but, with a 17-hour time difference, it was 6pm at the time in Australia.

After watching the first quarter, I regretted tuning in and just turned my device off and went to bed.

In the first quarter, the play-by-play commentator was awful. She literally began each possession with “[insert player’s name] with the ball.” That was very uninspiring, as far as I’m concerned. Literally every possession began with her saying “[player name] with the ball.” Yuck. No variation in her calls whatsoever.

Worse, the colour commentator, maybe a former player but I don’t know, had a two-minute span in which he said the same thing. Midway through the first quarter, on both sides there were players shooting three balls but missing, and I counted at least four times in those two minutes when there were three-ball misses. Every time a player missed, the colour commentator said, “Unlucky!” He literally said “Unlucky!” after each miss — and that was a total of four times in two minutes. “Unlucky!”

That’s awful broadcasting. It’s probably the worst I’ve ever heard.

I don’t know if both of them are former players, but I’m sure that even in Australia, normally the commentary is more varied and exciting than “[player name] with the ball” and “Unlucky!”

Rubbish! I’d say the fans tuning in were the unlucky ones.