CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In my college basketball attention span, going back to when I was about 9 or 10, there have been two men who have dominated the NCAA Final Four.

One is John Wooden. The other is Billy Packer.

I thought about that Monday when CBS Sports confirmed that Packer, 68, after more than a quarter-century as the network's lead college hoops analyst, was being replaced by Clark Kellogg, who will be very good and different.

What, no Bill Raftery to "send it in?"

Packer, never retiring on the air, is being retired from the sidelines. His year-to-year contract wasn't renewed. He will continue doing basketball-related business projects, because Billy is bigger than basketball.

Not a lot of outsiders know this, but Packer has been intimately involved in creating some of CBS Sports' best intersectional matchups for years. He hasn't just worked the games; he has worked at putting them together.

Anyway, consider some synergy between Wooden, the great UCLA coach, still dribbling in a wonderful life at age 97, and a businessman broadcaster it seemed so many loved to loathe (but not me).

Wooden and Packer -- or both -- have been integral parts of 45 of the last 47 Final Fours. Wooden coached in 12 and won 10 titles. Packer has called the last 34 for NBC and CBS.

To put that in some sort of local context, Wooden and Packer's first Final Four appearances came three years after West Virginia and Jerry West lost in the 1959 final at Freedom Hall (another college basketball legendary property).

Get this: Wooden's first Final four as UCLA's coach came in 1962 -- when Packer played in the event as a Wake Forest guard. Packer's Deacons edged Wooden's Bruins 82-80 in the national consolation game (yes, they had those then), also in Louisville, Ky.

Then, in 1975, Packer made his debut as a Final Four telecast analyst -- and called Wooden into retirement with an NCAA title in his last games, over Louisville (and former Wooden assistant Denny Crum) and Kentucky, in San Diego.

(Another reference point: All in the Family, Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man were the top-rated TV shows that 1974-75 season.)

College basketball has had some great teams. One of the best was the NBC (1978-81) trio of Dick Enberg, Packer and the late Al McGuire.

Wooden is in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player (Purdue) and coach. Unless you count the Curt Gowdy Award for broadcasters, Packer isn't in the Springfield, Mass., shrine -- which is ridiculous. He has done at least as much for basketball as upcoming inductee Dick Vitale.

He was bringing people to televised basketball - and helping them understand the nuances of an American game -- before Vitale (or ESPN, for that matter) even went on the air in '79. A lot of former coaches (Packer was briefly one of those) can talk the game, but few as succinctly or concisely as Packer.

He wasn't shrill and he wasn't a shill. As a journalist, maybe that's why I appreciated Packer. His preparation was obvious. His presentation was professional. 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In my college basketball attention span, going back to when I was about 9 or 10, there have been two men who have dominated the NCAA Final Four.

One is John Wooden. The other is Billy Packer.

I thought about that Monday when CBS Sports confirmed that Packer, 68, after more than a quarter-century as the network's lead college hoops analyst, was being replaced by Clark Kellogg, who will be very good and different.

What, no Bill Raftery to "send it in?"

Packer, never retiring on the air, is being retired from the sidelines. His year-to-year contract wasn't renewed. He will continue doing basketball-related business projects, because Billy is bigger than basketball.

Not a lot of outsiders know this, but Packer has been intimately involved in creating some of CBS Sports' best intersectional matchups for years. He hasn't just worked the games; he has worked at putting them together.

Anyway, consider some synergy between Wooden, the great UCLA coach, still dribbling in a wonderful life at age 97, and a businessman broadcaster it seemed so many loved to loathe (but not me).

Wooden and Packer -- or both -- have been integral parts of 45 of the last 47 Final Fours. Wooden coached in 12 and won 10 titles. Packer has called the last 34 for NBC and CBS.

To put that in some sort of local context, Wooden and Packer's first Final Four appearances came three years after West Virginia and Jerry West lost in the 1959 final at Freedom Hall (another college basketball legendary property).

Get this: Wooden's first Final four as UCLA's coach came in 1962 -- when Packer played in the event as a Wake Forest guard. Packer's Deacons edged Wooden's Bruins 82-80 in the national consolation game (yes, they had those then), also in Louisville, Ky.

Then, in 1975, Packer made his debut as a Final Four telecast analyst -- and called Wooden into retirement with an NCAA title in his last games, over Louisville (and former Wooden assistant Denny Crum) and Kentucky, in San Diego.

(Another reference point: All in the Family, Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man were the top-rated TV shows that 1974-75 season.)

College basketball has had some great teams. One of the best was the NBC (1978-81) trio of Dick Enberg, Packer and the late Al McGuire.

Wooden is in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player (Purdue) and coach. Unless you count the Curt Gowdy Award for broadcasters, Packer isn't in the Springfield, Mass., shrine -- which is ridiculous. He has done at least as much for basketball as upcoming inductee Dick Vitale.

He was bringing people to televised basketball - and helping them understand the nuances of an American game -- before Vitale (or ESPN, for that matter) even went on the air in '79. A lot of former coaches (Packer was briefly one of those) can talk the game, but few as succinctly or concisely as Packer.

He wasn't shrill and he wasn't a shill. As a journalist, maybe that's why I appreciated Packer. His preparation was obvious. His presentation was professional. 

Or, as Louisville Coach Rick Pitino said of Packer's exiting the sideline stage:

"I think Billy has given the most professional accounting of basketball in the history of our game as a commentator. He always gives an unbiased view, staying professional to the letter 'P.'

"He's really broken down the game for the fans and made it very entertaining for viewers. Whether you were a basketball aficionado or a casual fan, you can understand the game and interpret it as it should be with Billy's analysis."

He was good, so much so that when the NCAA Tournament rights moved from NBC to CBS in 1982, Packer moved networks, too.

He was perceived to have a bias toward the Atlantic Coast Conference, but I always thought he was trapped on that subject simply because he lived in North Carolina and knew the ACC better than other leagues.

Packer has been roundly roasted in recent years for criticizing the NCAA Tournament  "expansion" of bids to mid-majors. Hey, this isn't new. Back in 1979, he wondered aloud about how worthy Indiana State and Larry Bird were.

He had an opinion, and he stated it ... and if he was wrong or right, he lived with it.

In a previous sportswriting life, I once spent an entire broadcast day at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium with Enberg, McGuire and Packer, sharing a mic-less headset on their telecast row to write about an NBC basketball broadcast day.

It was illuminating, and it brought to me a great appreciation of how each played within his role to make a good team great. By then, Packer and his ACC telecast partner, the late Jim Thacker, had made viewing regionally rewarding.

Because he didn't bellow and kiss up to coaches constantly, Packer was viewed as something of a joyless sort. It wasn't so much that I think, but the fact that he saw the game through a prism that doesn't quite sell today.

To him, the game was (and still is) about the game. It wasn't about Packer. He was a March Madness monopoly and around longer than even John Madden and Tim McCarver -- but Packer didn't need to remind viewers about who he knew as much as what he knew.

The past two basketball winters, I really enjoyed watching CBS' national games early in the season, when Packer teamed with Verne Lundquist. They are contemporaries and seem to have the same sense that they are calling a game (and enjoying and appreciating it), not selling their personalities.

CBS' lead hoops broadcaster, Jim Nantz, would still be off doing NFL games and then PGA Tour anchoring. He'd turn up for hoops about late February to work with Packer before the Big Dance. They didn't mesh anymore like Lundquist and Packer did. They didn't work together enough during the season.

Here's what you should know about Packer. He worked with Thacker, Gowdy, Enberg, Gary Bender, Brent Musburger, Nantz and Lundquist among others.

It didn't matter. Billy was Billy. It was his sport, and the game was the thing.