ARLINGTON, Texas – Grant Hill is back at the Final Four. He did not bring the hightop fade he wore as a freshman in 1991.
"I remember I had a bad haircut, for one, but I was fired up," Hill said of his first trip to the Final Four as a player. "We played a great team in UNLV, nobody expected us to win and I was nervous. But I was nervous for every Final Four. You're not human, I think, if you're not."
On Friday, Hill was watching UConn practice in the Dallas Cowboys' massive stadium. He will work as a broadcaster at the 2014 Final Four.
Hill's Duke Blue Devils upset defending national champion UNLV in 1991. He played in three Final Fours and won a pair of national championships before heading to the NBA for 19 seasons. He has spent the past year working NBA and college games as a TV analyst.
"It's not as hard as I thought on one hand, but it's also very difficult," Hill said. "You learn the nuances, what works, how to project, how to do highlights — all these different components to it. I feel like — I hope — I've gotten better since the first day."
Hill's NBA work has been relatively easy since he was still in the league less than a year ago, but he's had to study up on the college game.
"You have to learn the guys, watch the games and get a feel for the styles of play and the personalities, so it's a different animal."
--John Marshall — https://twitter.com/jmarshallap
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NCAA Finals Watch follows the Final Four games and all the activities surrounding the event as seen by journalists from The Associated Press in North Texas — from the big stadium in Arlington where the games will be played to downtown Dallas. It will be updated throughout the day with breaking news and other items of interest.
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