Big Ten Network added to various cable systems

Great news for Big Ten fans around the country! A number of cable systems across the country have recently had the Big Ten Network added to their channel line-up. This includes Comcast and Charter among others.

The actual location varies by cable system and geography, usually the further away from a Big Ten market, the further away in the cable line-up one can find it. For example Comcast has added it next to the Fox College Sports and ESPN-News and ESPN-Classic channels.

This is great news, but we still don't have ESPNU on Comcast. Well, I guess one per season!

College Hoops 2K8 for XBox 360 just $12.60

Video games fans, you can now get your college hoops fix for less on the XBox 360. Amazon has the College Hoops 2K8 video game on sale for $12.61, and eligible for free shipping if your total order is $25 or more.



And don't forget to catch a wall to wall repeat of the 2008 NCAA tournament on CSTV. I believe this is the first time in the modern era that the whole NCAA tournament is shown on national TV. But CSTV is "buried" in digital cable and satellite TV packages, but we have no doubt that CBS will eventually push it and make it more accessible to more sports fans out there. After all, they are competing with ESPN-U and the three Fox College Sports (FCS). FCS are aggregators of games from the 20+ regional FSNs).

Time for CBS to clean house and reboot their TV commentators!

Hopefully Billy Packer was just the beginning of a clean-up job at CBS's March Madness coverage, which by the way you can relive right now on CSTV.

Normally I would charge for this, but I'm feeling generous, so CBS, here is what you need to do!


Keep and give them a bonus!

1. Clark Kellogg, Seth Davis, Bryan Gumble
   
2. Bill Raftery, Len Elmore, Jay Bilas
   
3. Gus Johnson

They need to be replaced no matter what

1. Jim Nantz (go back to Golf!)
   
2. Verne Lindquist (please go back to the senior's PGA tour)
   
3. Dick Enberg (recite essays during halftime, don't call games)
   
4. Tim Brando (idiotically annoying)
   
5. Bob Wenzel (no need to explain!)

Keep only if you can't find anyone better

1. G-Man (Mike Gminski) and Dan Bonner - monotonous make good games boring
   
2. Ian "Ion" Eagle and Jim Spinarkel (Yellow Pages are more exciting)
   
3. The high-school kid from CSTV (he's actually older)

Who should be added

1. Marques Johnson
   
2. Doris Burke
   
3. Pete Gillen
   
4. Tom Brennan
   
5. Steve Lavin
   
6. Dan Shuman without Vitale
   
7. reunite trio of Bilas, Raftery and Sean "McDonut" during second week of the tourney

Do not invite!

1. Dick Vitale
   
2. Mike Patrick
   
3. Steve Lapas
   
4. Mike Jarvis
   
5. Jimmy Dykes
   
6. Fran Fraschilla
   
7. Dan Belluomini and Barry Thompkins (he was the one doing the KFC "crunchy on the outside, spicy on the inside" ads during the FSN Pac-10 games)

Relive the 2008 NCAA tournament on CSTV (CBS College Sports)

Starting Monday July 21, 2008 at 9am pacific time, CBS College Sports (aka CSTV) will be rebroadcasting select games from the 2008 NCAA tournament. They are obviously picking the exciting games, as they don't want to bore us with repeat-ZZZzz games. Here is a preliminary schedule, but be sure to check and double-check with local listings for exact games and air times. All times here at pacific!


Monday July 21
9am: Georgia vs Xavier
11am: Kansas vs Portland State
1pm: Temple vs Michigan State
3pm: Kent State vs UNLV
5pm: Baylor vs Purdue
7pm: Kentucky vs Marquette
***: all these repeat overnight


Tuesday July 22
9am: Oral Roberts vs Pitt
11am: Cornell vs Stanford
1pm: Washington State vs Winthrop
3pm: Kansas State vs USC (OJ Mayo vs Michael Beasley!)
5pm: BYU vs Texas A&M
7pm: Belmont vs Duke (Go Belmont!)
***: games repeat overnight


Wedn July 23
9am: Miss V St vs UCLA
11am: Cal State Fullerton vs Wisconsin
1pm: George MASON vs Notre Dame
3pm: Arizona vs West Virginia
5pm: Davidson vs GoneZaga
7pm: Drake vs Western Kentucky
***: games repeat overnight


Thursday July 24
9am: American vs Tennessee
11am: Miami vs St Mary's
1pm: Butler vs South Alabama
3pm: UMBC vs Georgetown
5pm: Austin Peay vs Texas
7pm: San Diego Vs UConn
***: games repeat overnight


Friday July 25
9am: Mount St Marys vs North Carolina-ouch!
11am: Boise State vs PitinoVille (Louisville)
1pm: UTSA vs Memphis
3pm: Siena vs Vandy
5pm: Oklahoma vs St Joe's
7pm: Mississippi State vs Oregon
***: games repeat overnight


Saturday July 26
9am: Arkansas vs Indiana
11am: Clemson vs Villanova
1pm: Belmont vs Duke
3pm: UConn vs San Diego
5pm: Drake vs Western Kentucky
***: games repeat overnight


Sunday July 27
9am: Notre Dame vs Washington State
11am: Kansas vs UNLV
1pm: Texas A&M vs UCLA
3pm: Marquette vs Stanford
***: repeat overnight


Monday July 28
12pm: Michigan State vs Pitt
2pm: Butler vs Tennessee
4pm: San Diego vs Western Kentucky
6pm: Davidson vs Georgetown
***: repeat overnight


Tuesday July 29
9am: Wisconsin vs Kansas State
11am: Louisville vs Oklahoma
1pm: Purdue vs Xavier
3pm: Siena vs Nova
5pm: duke vs WEST VIRGINIA (Go Thuggins! Beat the Dookies!!!)
7pm: Miami vs Texas (teacher vs pupil)
***: repeat overnight


Wednesday July 30
9am: Arkansas vs North Carolina
11am: Kansas vs Nova
1pm: Stanford vs Texas
3pm: UCLA vs Western Kentucky
5pm: Mississippippi vs Co-Champions Memphis
7pm: Davidson vs Wisconsin
***: repeat overnight


Thursday July 31
9am: Washington State vs North Carolina
11am: Michigan State vs Memphis (co-champions)
1pm: Louisville vs Tenneseeeee
3pm: more coming up, bookmark this post and visit again!

MLB Extra Innings free on-demand preview

Comcast, and perhaps other cable providers as well, are having a free one week preview of their pay-per-view MLB Extra Innings cable package, which shows lots of baseball games from around the country. The free preview is from July 17 to July 23, and you need to have the appropriate cable system and package to watch the free preview.

For example, on some cable systems, pay per view has moved on to digital cable, so you may need a digital set top box in order to have access to the free preview.

The witch is gone! Billy Packer out as CBS lead analyst!

Today on Mike and Mike, the slim Mike was reading a story from the Miami Herald saying that CBS will be replacing Billy "Fudge" Packer with studio analyst Clark Kellogg as their lead basketball analyst during game broadcasts!

Finally we are getting rid of Packer! Woohoo :) Of course Kellogg is about as dry as Packer, but he does not have the abrasive and toxic personality of Billy Packer.

So the TV analyst carousel is spinning, who is going to replace Clark Kellogg as the lead studio analyst? Perhaps Seth "Golfer" Davis will move as the #1 lead spot, but who is going to be his runner up? Or will CBS go for a big name analyst to replace Kellogg as the #1 analyst?

Remember, Packer was also enforcing a "no fun" policy at CBS, which is why we see a long list of "dry" analysts and commentators.

Does this change also mean a change of direction? Will we see more "fun" and "exciting" analysts making the game "younger"? After all, they are talking about college basketball, not the seniors PGA tour! Will the CSTV team win over the frozen-in-evolution Packer-ites?

OTL Sunday: Hometown hero, talking about Derrick Rose and more!

The Sunday edition of Outside the Lines, on Sunday June 29, 2008, will be having a featured story on "Hometown heroes" playing in their home town. Derrick Rose's story will be featured, him being a Chicago native, and drafted on Thursday by the Chicago Bulls. UNC's and Brown Bobcats point guard Raymond Felton will be a guest. The other story wlll be on NASCAR, so have your FF button ready :)

2008 NBA Draft TV schedule!

And we are back after a March Madness burnout break! We start with a comprehensive NBA Draft TV schedule. Not only will the ESPN family of networks be having wall to wall draft coverage but also NBA-TV, which is of course the multimedia outlet of David Stern's little cult ;-)

Note that all times mentioned here are pacific time! Add +3 for Eastern time and adjust accordingly depending on your timezone. See TimeAndDate.com for more time-related details.


Sunday June 22 (all times pacific)
+Starting at 9am pacific and going on throughout the week, NBA-TV will be having classic NBA Draft recap specials, starting with 1991 (Larry Johnson, Kenny Anderson, Mutombo), and continuing with 1992 (Shaq, Zo, Whining slugface Laettner, Latrell "I love PJ but can't feed my kids on 10 mil per year" Sprewell), and 1993 (C-Web, Penny, Van Brickxel, JR Rider, etc). Check NBA-TV for complete listings. These repeat multiple times, so you have to try hard in order to miss them ;-)


Monday June 23 (all times pacific)
+11am: SportsCenter NBA Draft Special, ESPN
+5pm, 9pm, 1230am: NBA Draft Preview Show (2 hours long), NBA-TV
+7pm: SportsCenter NBA Draft Special, ESPN2


Tuesday June 24 (all times pacific)
+4am, 9am, 1pm, 6pm, 10pm: NBA Draft Preview Show (2 hours long), NBA-TV
+1030am: SportsCenter NBA Draft Special, ESPN
+430pm: SportsCenter NBA Draft Special, ESPN2
+8pm: Destination NBA Draft, ESPN2


Wednesday June 25 (all times pacific)
+1030am: SportsCenter NBA Draft Special, ESPN
+12pm, 3pm, 7pm, 10pm, 2am: NBA Draft Preview Show (2 hours long), NBA-TV
+7pm: NBA Draft Preview, ESPN


Thursday June 26 DRAFT DAY (all times pacific)
+7am, 2pm: NBA Draft Preview Show (2 hours long), NBA-TV
+4pm: NBA Draft Preview, ESPN
+430pm: NBA DRAFT LIVE from MSG, ESPN
+6pm: NBA TV LIVE draft coverage, NBA-TV
+12am: NBA Draft repeat, ESPN


Friday June 27 morning after (all times pacific)
+9am, 4pm, 1am: NBA Draft repeat, NBA-TV
+11am: Bucks Live on Fox College Sports (recap of Milwaukee Bucks Draft day)
+3pm, 7pm, 11pm: Destination NBA Draft, NBA-TV (repeats Saturday and Sunday as well)


On-Demand Schedule
+NBA-TV is offering 20+ player profiles and team-by-team analysis On-Demand. The full content is available to digital cable subscribes who have a sports package that includes NBA-TV or the NBA pay per view package. Some On-Demand cable systems may also offer some of this content for free, check in the section that is frequently updated with new and seasonal content in your on-demand menu

NBATV free preview for 19 days!

This is the best time of the year to have a free preview of the NBA-TV, right at the start of the long and winding NBA playoff season! Check with your local cable provider to see if it's available. The note we saw was for Comcast.

This usually requires a digital cable box to have access to NBA-TV, regardless of subscription status. You can usually find it in optional sports packages.

The promotion starts on April 16, 2008 and ends on May 4, 2008, that's a total of 19 days! On top of that, all NBA-TV On-Demand content is also available for free!

Please note that NBA-TV is a single channel that covers the NBA and professional baskebtall 24x7. This is different from the NBA League Pass package that shows you games from all around the country.

But usually NBA-TV is included in the NBA League Pass package, so if you sign up for that, you get NBA-TV too!

Early entries in the 2008 NBA Draft (updated)

It is unfortunately this time of the season for college basketball fans where some of the best underclassmen are leaving college basketball for greener pastures (for the most part). How many of this year's superfreshmen will we say goodbye to? We'll find out by the end of June :)

Here are some of the players who have announced so far, this will be updated in the next few days!

Player	School	Class	Agent?
Brook Lopez	Stanford	Sophomore	?
Robin Lopez	Stanford	Sophomore	?
Not Cedric Simmons (JJ Hickson)	NC State	freshman	?
Derrick Caracter	Louisville	Sophomoric	Gone regardless?
Not Jimi Hendrix (Richard)	Alabama	Junior	No Agent (as of 3/31)
JaVale McGee	Nevada	Sophomore	Hired Agent
Lester Hudson	Tennessee-Martini	junior	No agent (4/1, Fox Sports)
Ryan Anderson	Cal Berkeley	sophomore	No agent (4/3)
Eric Gordon	Indiana Sampsons	freshman	Declaring (1070 the fan)
Jerryd "Not Skip" Bayless	Arizona	freshman	Declares (AOL Sports)
Ron Steele	Alabama	4th year junior	No Agent (BamaHoops)
Earl Clark	PitinoVille	Sophomore	Declaring? Not so fast? Staying in school?
Anthony Randolph	LSU	freshman	Declares
Mo Spreights	Florida	Sophomore	Test Waters
DeAndre Jordan	Texas A&M	Freshman	Declaring
Donte Greene	Syracuse	freshman	Declaring
Kevin Love	UCLA Slugfest	Freshman	Confusion! Is he declaring? Maybe YES for sure?
OJ Mayo	USC	Freshman	Declaring
Trent Plaidsted	BYU	sophomore?	Testing waters
Michael Beasley	Kansas State	freshman	Going, going, gone, with agent (4/14)
Derrick Rose	Memphis	freshman	Gone! (Tax Day)
Jeremy Pargo	GoneZaga	junior	Declaring, no agent
Brandon Rush	Kansas	junior	Declaring
Darrell Arthur (Shady)	Kansas	Sophomore	Declaring
Russell Westbrook	UCLA	sophomore	Declaring?
Keith Brumbaugh	JuCo (former BCS commit)	Sophomore?	Declaring?
CDR (Chris Douglas Roberts)	Memphis	junior	Declaring?
Luc Richard Mbah Mute	UCLA	junior	Not a Joke! Declaring

They said they are returning (but wait for the Draft Deadline before you start a parade in their name)

Devon Jefferson (USC) (March)

Stephen Curry (Davidson) (March 31st)

Blake Griffin (Oklahoma) (early April)

more coming up


Draft Stories
Writers discuss the NBA draft in the Bleacher Repor(t).

The New York Times looks at the draft pool, and specifically the freshmen.

HOT NEWS! AOL News reports that the NBA and NCAA reached a secret agreement that will be revealed in a press conference on Monday that extends the NBA draft minimum age to 20, in order to keep college players in school for two years instead of one. FALSE ALARM! But perhaps better news in that all the stakeholders are getting together to work on putting some structure and some common sense to the summer leagues and the development of the youngsters. Of course there is the old saying of "too many cooks" and that is certainly the case here, but I bet almost anything is better than the insanity of the current summer circuit.

Meanwhile, Bruins Nation has done a great job in their write-up on Russell Westbrook and the NBA Draft.

A story posted over and over the net, as if to irritate North Carolina fans says that none of the three UNC players are in the lottery. The trio of course being Tyler "looked like a child against Kansas frontline" Hansbrough, Tywon "I was fast" Lawson, and Wayne "I played with that dirty Dookie in high school" Ellington.

The Sports Flow has a Should I stay or should I go analysis of the high-profile underclassmen from the four Final Four teams. Theme songs: The Clash with the aforementioned title, or for the younger audience, "Stay or Leave" by the DMB.

A complete listing of all the 2008 NBA Draft prospects at CBS Sportsline.

Travis Ford moves to Oklahoma State!

NIT Champion, and working under Pitino and Donovan, UMass head coach Travis Ford moves on to the Big 12, according to ESPN-News according to Doug Gottleib. Douggie is now live on the phone on ESPN News reporting on this breaking news!

What happened to the Henry Iba slugfest defensive style of play? Move over Pac-10, Big 12 is the new run and gun conference?

Turn on to ESPN News now for the live update from Doug Gottlieb! The deal is not yet signed, and Travis Ford was recently given a 10-year/$10-million deal by UMass!

The final BlogPoll Top 25 poll of the 2007-2008 season!

The inaugural season of the BlogPoll Top 25 ends with the final end of season poll that was just published today. The poll is available for all to see, including complete details on how each blogger voter. It is available as a Google Doc which you can read online or offline, with your browser or your favorite office productivity tool.

Which teams made the Final Top 25? You have to read to find out. Here are the teams that did not make the Final Top 25, but were knocking on the door: Villanova, Pitt, Oklahoma, Vandy, USC, Texas A&M, USC and GoneZaga. Of those, we did vote Nova and Vandy in the top 25.

If you are a college hoops or sports blogger and want to join the BlogPoll for the 2008-2009 season, just let any participating blogger know! You can find the list of all participating blogs at the top of the Google Doc. Each blog's name is a link to their site!

And before we conclude, big thanks to the BlogPoll Commissioner at March To Madness who has been running the poll throughout the season and herding blogging cats!