Reasonable people will disagree as to whether he belongs in the hall of fame. As Forty mentioned, Knight supported his entry as did John Wooden, Pete Newell, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, John Chaney, Don Haskins, Lute Olson, Denny Crum, Jim Boeheim and Rick Barnes. Here’s the blurb from the Hall of Fame announcing his selection.

DICK VITALE – Contributor (Finalist in 2004, 2006), a native of Passaic, NJ, has been synonymous with college basketball for more than 20 years as the lead color announcer for ESPN. A successful coach at the high school (East Rutherford), collegiate (University of Detroit) and professional (Detroit Pistons) levels, Vitale began his broadcasting career with ESPN in 1979 and has helped make the network an integral part of college basketball’s popularity. His enthusiastic, upbeat style has resulted in a lexicon of now-familiar phrases as “Get a TO,” “Awesome, Baby,” and “PTP-er.” An author of six books chronicling his love affair with basketball, Vitale was recipient of the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy electronic media award (1988) and won the NABC Cliff Wells Appreciation Award in 2000.

What people can’t question is the man’s enthusiasm and passion for basketball nor his relentless efforts to raise funds for cancer research.

That said, Vitale has become so well know he stands as a caricature of himself: much more advocate and than analyst. As one of the linked posts said, he routinely uses games as a soapbox to assail the ills of basketball or promote a particular aspect of the sport. I wish he would spend less time doing this and more speaking as how to feed the post, or attack a 2-3 zone or defend an inbounds play and so on.