Your NCAA Tournament Saturday Third Round Announcing Schedule
Games, tip times, announcers, and network assignments have been revealed for Saturday's third round games (I know we've been over this before and that it's actually the second round, but it's just easier for me to go with the official lingo, my apologies). The Auburn Hills pod gets the national early afternoon timeslots featuring Michigan and Michigan State with the rest of the schedule starting at 5:15 ET. And as a bonus, there's no games on truTV! All times are Eastern...
Third Round Games
Saturday, March 23
12:15 CBS Auburn Hills I
5) VCU vs 4) Michigan
Verne Lundquist, Bill Raftery, Rachel Nichols
~2:45 CBS Auburn Hills II
6) Memphis vs 3) Michigan St.
Lundquist, Raftery, Nichols
5:15 CBS Lexington I
8) Colorado St. vs 1) Louisville
Ian Eagle, Jim Spanarkel, Allie LaForce
6:10 TNT Salt Lake City I
14) Harvard vs 6) Arizona
Spero Dedes, Doug Gottlieb, Jamie Maggio
7:10 TBS San Jose I
12) Oregon vs 4) St. Louis
Brian Anderson, Dan Bonner, Marty Snider
~7:45 CBS Lexington II
6) Butler vs 3) Marquette
Eagle, Spanarkel, LaForce
~8:40 TNT Salt Lake City II
9) Wichita St. vs 1) Gonzaga
Dedes, Gottlieb, Maggio
~9:40 TBS San Jose II
12) California vs 4) Syracuse
Anderson, Bonner, Snider
CBS moved the opening tipoff of it's 3rd game today between Colorado State VS Louisville 5 minutes from 5:15 ET to 5:20 ET and current Pittsburgh Panthers Head Coach Jamie Dixon was the Guest Analyst from Turner's Atlanta Studios, after they had Rex Chapman as their 3rd Studio Analyst from Turner's Atlanta Studios from Wednesday-Friday too!!!
What the hell is this schedule? 1 game early, 1 early afternoon, then 6 games in the evening? Who's brilliant idea was this?
Amichaels this will be the 3rd straight year that CBS,TBS, TNT and TRUTV have gone with this schedule for the 1st weekend of the Men's NCAA Tournament and it will probably remain like that for the next 11 years, so don't expet on the NCAA and Turner to change it for the 14 years of their contract either!
Also they have the schedule like that, so that TNT can have the Infiniti NCAA Tipoff Pregame show from 5-6 ET and so that the Inside March Madness Postgame Show can air after all of the games on TBS too!!!
The only thing the NCAA tourney is lacking to make things much more viewable is playing in outdoor arenas, especially in the north and midwest venues. Make some courts out of shredded rubber and wait for a blizzard and you've got a real basketball game.
