By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

Jim Nantz seems like a good dude. In fact, when I was on a trip to Pebble Beach a few years ago, we asked one of the waiters in the restaurant who was the nicest famous person who he had ever served. He didn’t even have to think about it. “Mister Jim Nantz,” he said. (Remind me to tell you later who he said was not the nicest.)

But after being overloaded with viewing a golf tournament that really wasn’t that great, I feel like I was overloaded with Nantz more than I was with Augusta National or Hideki Matsuyama or azalea bushes. So, here are the top nine (think of it as the front nine) of things that Nantz says and does that bug me.

“Hello friends.” I know it’s a catch phrase, but it’s gotten out of control. A little too personal for me. I’ll let you know when we are friends.

The first names: Jim has decided that there are certain golfers who he will always call by their first name and never their last name — Tiger (Woods), Phil (Mickelson), Sergio (Garcia). And don’t get him started with the old timers. He’d quit if they made him call Jack Nicklaus by his last name. Plus Raymond (Floyd), Arnold (Palmer) and right on down the old-school line.

The cutline: In the second round, he is all about predicting where the cutline is going to be and who is going to make it. Jim, these guys are going to be teeing off at sunrise during the weekend; it doesn’t matter.

Obscure historical references: Will Zalatoris hit a tree on his drive on 17 and it bounced back into the fairway. Jim said “the Crenshaw bounce.” Oh, that cleared it up.

Incidental caddy info: When the winner is walking up the 18th fairway, you can bet that Jim is going to pull out that research card and mention the caddy’s name as if they were BFFs. And he will mention the player’s family members like he had just been there for Thanksgiving dinner.

Puns: He has some of the worst puns in the business. Some too awful to even repeat.

Foreign players: Of course he did it this year with Japan’s Matsuyama, but he also did it when Australia’s Adam Scott won it a few years ago — he goes on and on and on about how it is basically going to change course of history in the homeland. It’s nice, it’s significant, it’s definitely a storyline. But let’s lay off the hyperbole.

Lost in translation: Because Matsuyama required a translator, that naturally made for an awkward interview both Saturday and Sunday. Here’s a hint — try not to ask a 60-second question. The poor translator just gave up and paraphrased the whole thing. There’s no way he could have remembered the entire question.

The final moment: Many have always thought that Jim decides on what he’s going to say after the final putt at least a day in advance. It often requires a bad pun (see above). As soon as the guy putts out, here comes Jim to say something that will be repeated like Al Michaels at the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Olympics. That’s why he loves it when the winner is in the final group. This year, Nantz didn’t bring his A game. Something like “a Japanese champion!” Betcha it took awhile to think that one up.

By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

Monday’s national championship game was disappointing, especially for those who picked Gonzaga to win by five points. (How’d that work out?)

It was disappointing because everything was all set up for a great final. You had a team going for an undefeated season, but even more significantly, it was a matchup of two teams that had the best combined won-loss record in history of the championship game. Almost since the beginning of the season, everyone knew these were the two best teams. You rarely get that in a one-and-done tournament.

Everything would have been perfect if Baylor hadn’t come along and been so great.

You can point to a lot of reasons as to why and how the game ended up like it did, but all the answers come back to one common answer — Baylor.

Baylor shot the lights out.

Baylor got every offensive rebound.

Baylor made Gonzaga look like they’d just come back from an all-night card game.

Baylor was quicker. Baylor was stronger. Baylor had a better game plan.

Gonzaga had no answer for what the Bears threw at them, mainly because the Bulldogs didn’t even know what the questions were.

Though it was literally not close for 95 percent of game, that shouldn’t diminish our appreciation of what Baylor did. Rarely do you see a team in a game of this magnitude have its spirit taken away. And it’s not like Gonzaga was a fraud; the Bulldogs ran over everybody 31 times. You don’t do that in college basketball unless you play 31 games at home, and even then it’s questionable.

This game was all about Baylor; Gonzaga just happened to have a great view.