A ranking from the best to worst, and news on how the underrated television program has expanded for the better in the upcoming season.

Believe it or not, Kentucky will NOT be featured week in and week out. But the 'Cats will get more Tuesday night airtime than any other SEC team.

Reality television probably doesn't have much of a long-term place on college campuses. It may not have any place, some would argue. But Texas Tech is going back into the business anyway. It'll be the school's second foray; you'll remember the first go-round four and a half years ago, when "Knight School" had a six-episode run on ESPN. That's when Bobby Knight was still running the show. The new program, "The Ride," won't ... Read More

For the third consecutive year ESPN will give us college hoophead diehards a treat by broadcasting games for 24 consecutive hours. The made-for-TV event, titled "College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon," runs throughout the course of Tuesday, Nov. 16. Man ... it's so easy to type that with such restraint right now. I blame it entirely on the month of August. When October rolls around, my excitement will not be curtailed. This marathon ... Read More

Talking TV in August? Yes, I'm already pining.

For many, the wish has been granted: a Duke-Carolina game that won't feature Dick Vitale. Today, CBS announced quite a coup: it will broadcast, for the first time in primetime on network TV, college basketball's best rivalry. From the brief press release, the network states: "CBS Sports, college basketball's leading network broadcaster, has announced that the Duke at North Carolina game will be broadcast in prime time on Saturday, March 5, 2011 ... Read More

Though ESPN couldn't steal The Tournament away from CBS recently, it got what it considers the next most sacred thing when it comes to college basketball television rights: the ACC. John Ourand of Sports Business Journal tweeted this morning about how the Four-Letter was able to stave of Fox's heavy push to steal the broadcast rights for the ACC in basketball and football. The link to the article is here, but ... Read More

We got entirely too close to having Dick Vitale call an NCAA Tournament, a fate that was a meeting or two away from becoming a reality. And this was even before the broadcast bidding rights began. When the talks started up at CBS prior to the 2009-10 college basketball season about what it needed to do to restructure its deal with the NCAA, one idea got floated out there that was unprecedented ... Read More

Somewhat of a shocker here, as quite a few people expected ESPN to push rather hard for the broadcast rights in this critical year. This decision by the Juggernaut has little to do with expansion, it would seem, though. Somewhat shockingly, the sports world's richest company passed on the opportunity to broadcast one of the most unifying events in American sports — a sport it already dedicates more than 2,200 hours of ... Read More

We knew Duke would bring the eyeballs, but who said Butler would kill ratings? Those people were oh so wrong. We had plenty of people watching what happened in Indianapolis last night, even though two programs who had a combined one trip in the past 51 years were taking part. And weather was good around the country. This is certainly a big, big thing for CBS, which needs these kinds ... Read More

The good-natured ribbing occurs between 1:40 and 2:30 of the video, after Buccigross sneaks in a little shot at Memphis' inability to win that national title (which now wouldn't exist!) in 2008.

Growing up on college basketball in the mid-'90s, I always loved Big Monday. If you fall in my age range (27 to 33 years old), you probably did too. I loved how the sport was so relevant on the national scene. Was it all in my head? Who knows. These days, it's hard to argue college basketball's slow slip into the background until late February. I still do love Big Monday, ... Read More

When Bobby Knights speaks his mind at ESPN (which has been rather tame), he's paid attention to and not disciplined by anyone. Ever. When someone who is not Knight speaks out To be fair, Knight hasn't said anything as stupid as what Jemele Hill (shocking!) said last week. On the Jemele Hill said (and I am paraphrasing) that UK fans would be fine with “Charles Manson as coach”, so long as ... Read More

Here's who he had in regard to college basketball. Best game analysts: Jay Bilas, Len Elmore, Fran Fraschilla, Clark Kellogg, Steve Lavin, Bill Raftery. No Gottlieb? Gottlieb's gotta be on that list, Richard. He's the most unafraid voice speaking on college basketball today. It's more impressive that he does it under ESPN's umbrella. Best play-by-play: Dan Shulman. Shulman gets the pick for general play-by-play duties, but his work in college basketball had ... Read More

This was addressed when I interviewed ESPN president George Bodenheimer last year, and it's only going to grow and grow as the option for the NCAA to opt out of its contract with CBS next year gets closer. Burke Magnus, the man who decides what college sports goes on where and when at ESPN, admitted the obvious to USA Today's Michael McCarthy recently when he said The Juggernaut would be interested ... Read More