A chance to be part of the NCAA tournament was a big reason why Doug Gottlieb jumped to CBS from ESPN. He will team with Spero Dedes for second- and third-round coverage.

Also, Rachel Nichols, who recently went to CNN/Turner, and Allie LaForce, who does a late-night show with Gottlieb on CBS Sports Network, have been added as game reporters.

Otherwise, it’s basically status quo when all the fun begins with the play-in games a week from tomorrow.

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Here’s the official announcement:

Turner Sports and CBS Sports today announces its lineup of broadcast teams for the third year of combined coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.  Once again, CBS Sports and Turner Sports provide live, full national coverage of the tournament’s 67 games across four national television networks – TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV – as well as across multiple platforms including NCAA March Madness Live®.

The tournament tips off on Tuesday, March 19 and Wednesday, March 20 with the NCAA FIRST FOUR™ on truTV Presented by Northwestern Mutual. Marv Albert and Steve Kerr will be courtside calling the action from Dayton, Ohio on March 19, with Craig Sager reporting.  Wednesday’s FIRST FOUR broadcast team, which will also call the second and third round games from the Dayton site, will be announced on Selection Sunday.

For the third consecutive year Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg, Steve Kerr and reporter Tracy Wolfson will team up for the Final Four® and National Championship game live from Atlanta, Ga. on Saturday, April 6 and Monday, April 8.

Joining this year’s announcer line-up are Doug Gottlieb, who will serve as a game and studio analyst, and courtside reporters Rachel Nichols and Allie LaForce.   

 Following are the announcer pairings for the second and third rounds (Thursday, March 21-Sunday, March 24):

Play-By-Play / Analyst // Reporter

*Regional Announce Teams

Jim Nantz / Clark Kellogg // Tracy Wolfson*

Marv Albert / Steve Kerr // Craig Sager*

Verne Lundquist / Bill Raftery // Rachel Nichols*

Kevin Harlan / Reggie Miller / Len Elmore // Lewis Johnson*

Ian Eagle / Jim Spanarkel // Allie LaForce

Brian Anderson / Dan Bonner // Marty Snider

Tim Brando / Mike Gminski // Otis Livingston

Spero Dedes / Doug Gottlieb // Jaime Maggio

Studio Coverage

For the third consecutive year, Turner Sports and CBS Sports will utilize two studios, based in New York and Atlanta, to cover all the tournament action. Studio coverage again will be anchored by Greg Gumbel and Ernie Johnson with Charles Barkley, Greg Anthony and Kenny Smith providing analysis throughout the tournament from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York.  Matt Winer anchors the coverage from Turner Studios in Atlanta and will be joined by Seth Davis and Steve Smith.  In addition, Lesley Visser will serve as a contributor.

During the Regional Semi-finals and Finals, Gottlieb will join the New York studio team.  Gumbel will remain in New York alongside Barkley, Anthony, Gottlieb and Kenny Smith, while Johnson will shift to the Atlanta studio to join Davis and Steve Smith.

Studio coverage for the FIRST FOUR originates from Atlanta and will feature Johnson, Barkley, Kenny Smith and Steve Smith on Tuesday with Winer, Davis and Steve Smith providing analysis on Wednesday.

Tournament time is just around the corner. Time to look ahead, and look back.

Here’s a clip from a promising CBS Sports Network documentary with the information below.

From CBS Sports Network:

CBS Sports Network presents THE MIRACLES: THE 1988 KANSAS JAYHAWKS, a one-hour documentary recounting the resurrection of the Kansas program under head coach Larry Brown and star player Danny Manning, culminating in winning the 1988 National Championship for the team known as “Danny and the Miracles.”

The one-hour documentary debuts Monday, March 11 (8:00 PM, ET).

THE MIRACLES: THE 1988 KANSAS JAYHAWKS explores Kansas’ turbulent 1988 season.  The Jayhawks struggled to a 12-8 mid-season record and lost to Oklahoma, their eventual national championship opponent, twice during the regular season. The documentary features interviews with Brown, Manning, current Kansas head coach Bill Self, former Oklahoma head coach Billy Tubbs and 10 of the 12 active players from the 1988 Kansas team.

Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal listened to a lot of Dickie V:

Asked in an interview if he harbored a pro-Duke bias, the 73-year-old former coach posed a challenge: “Take the video of me doing the Duke game,” he said, “and tell me that I’m biased for Duke.” So that’s what we did.

The sample for this study consisted of five Duke games Vitale has called over the last two seasons. It includes two wins and a loss against North Carolina, a road loss to N.C. State this January and a thrilling home win over Miami on Saturday. We logged 1,157 comments made by Vitale in these games and examined each one for signs of bias.

True to perception, 13% of these comments were positively gushy about Duke’s players, its coach Mike Krzyzewski, its quirky arena (Cameron Indoor Stadium), its rabid fans (the Cameron Crazies) and the SAT scores these fans may have attained.

Let’s be clear: By gushy we’re not talking about straightforward praise doled out for specific plays, like “good job by Kelly to come up with the loose ball.” We’re talking about statements like: “Talk about a P-T-P-er, baby, a prime time performer! Mr. Kelly’s been on fire! Somebody call the fire chief, man, he’s burning up the nets! Here he is, nothing but nylon! NBA time! Ryan Kelly, what a show!”

After a long wait, which prompted an angry letter to NCAA president Mark Emmert, the Associated Press Sports Editors, along with representatives from other news organizations, finally met with NCAA officials Monday in Indianapolis. The APSE posted a recap on its site.

What did it accomplish?

It’s too late to do anything about press seating for this year’s Final Four; the NCAA booted writers from a significant chunk of a prime location. However, according to the recap, the editors will have input in seating issues for future tournaments.

I’m not sure it will matter much. The NCAA seems unlikely to be deterred if it wants to turn prime media seats into high-price tickets. But at least the editors will have a chance to plead their case.

The biggest takeaway, from the editors’ point of view, probably occurred in regards to social media. There won’t be any restrictions on writers during the NCAA tournament. The NCAA also will inform the Pac 12 that it can’t place social media limitations on coverage of its games.

Bottom line: At least, the editors and NCAA are talking. It remains to be seen if it will do any good over the long haul. The NCAA is a fairly arrogant bunch these days, as evidenced by the way they initially refused to schedule any meetings with the editors.

Still, any talk is better than no talk.

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Here’s the APSE post on the meeting:

Representatives from APSE and five other major national media groups met Monday with NCAA communications officials for about two hours to discuss the concerns of our organizations.

The following items were agreed to as follow-up steps on the issues of media seating at the NCAA Tournament, uniform injury reporting standards in football and social media guidelines:

* The NCAA agreed to set up a call with our organizations after the upcoming basketball tournament to discuss the establishment of a permanent working group to address outstanding media issues.

* The NCAA will include APSE in future discussions with the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee regarding the seating of working journalists at the tournament.

* APSE will be invited to upcoming meetings with the NCAA and conference officials and have the opportunity to introduce discussion on injury reporting standards.

* NCAA officials said there would be no numerical restrictions on social media posting during its postseason events.

NCAA officials will contact the Pac-12 Conference to inform the league that there is no longer a policy limiting by number live tweets during college basketball or football games.

Representing the media organizations were: Gerry Ahern, president of APSE; Tim Franklin, co-chair of ASNE’s FOI Committee; John Cherwa, chair of APSE’s Legal Affairs Committee; David Bralow, counsel for NAA; Kevin Goldberg, counsel for ASNE; Sonny Albarado, president of SPJ; Jim Brady, president of ONA; and Mike Borland, president of NPPA.

Representing the NCAA were: Bob Williams, vice president of communications; Erik Christianson, managing director of external affairs; and Scott Bearby, general counsel.

APSE officials will keep you abreast of progress and developments in the coming months.

Or what’s left of the Big East. Besides UConn, who else remains from the once great conference?

However, there will be a Big East. And it looks as if the conference is headed for a deal with the NBC Sports Network. Money aside (and it ain’t great), the conference would do well to follow the lead of the NHL, and become the main college game in town on NBCSN. The full-court (ice?) special treatment has helped hockey, and it could do the same for the Big East.

Former Boston Globe reporter Mark Blaudschun, now writing for his own blog ajerseyguy.com, does an excellent breakdown of things broke down for the Big East and where it goes from here.

Blaudschun assigns the blame for the conference passing up a mega-deal with ESPN:

Marinatto’s moves were dictated by the Presidents, particularly those at Pittsburgh and Georgetown, who were his prime backers when he was selected to replace former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese. Both argued strongly that the ESPN offer could be and would be topped by outlets such as NBC and Fox, who were desperate for programming.

The theory was that since the Big East was the only available BCS league without a long-term television deal, it would be a seller’s market. The Big East was the only game in time. That was the argument Marinatto was using, even though his inclination was to take the ESPN deal and run and run with it.

Throw in West Virginia, Rutgers and Notre Dame as other conspirators in the move away from ESPN and you have the ring leaders. Add former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue who was a consultant also arguing that expanding to other networks and other parts of the country were better and you have the major players pulling the strings behind the curtain.

But it gets better. Consider the schools that were yelling the loudest to turn down a deal which would have given each school approximately 13 million per year, which was 10 million more per year than the current Big East football contract, which has one year remaining.

Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Rutgers and Notre Dame. All have left or leaving the Big East.

As for the future, Blaudschun writes:

So next year look for Big Monday to be on NBC cable. Look for the Big East tournament to be on NBC and NBC cable. Prime time exposure with prime time teams, a great starting point for a new network needing exposure.

In two years, when the Catholic 7 leave and Rutgers and Louisville head to the Big Ten and ACC, the football deal will kick in.

Look for NBC cable having a Big East game of the Week each Saturday. Look for prime time non-conference games such as a UConn-Michigan showing up on the main NBC network when Notre Dame is not playing at home.

Look for promotion and more promotion.

But what about the money? Or lack of it. At first, it will be very low. But it’s not a long-term deal. There will be “look in’s” clauses every couple of years. If takes off, the deal will be re-done for more money.

This could really work..

The Catholic 7–again led by Georgetown–will take their balls and sign a long-term deal with Fox to start their own 10 or 12 team play group, beginning in the fall of 2014. Maybe they will invite Xavier, Butler, St. Louis, Dayton, Creighton, VCU or Richmond or any combination that brings the total to 12.

The current Big East will emerge as a 10 team football league without a true dominant Top 10 contender on a consistent basis. It will be part of the non-BCS pack.

But it will have potential to get bigger and better. And it will have NBC promoting and cross promoting.

The Big Ten Network also is cashing in with the conference playing at arguably the highest level in the country. January was its biggest month ever in primetime. And that could be short-lived if the numbers are better in February.

From the BTN:

January 2013 marked the Big Ten Network’s highest-rated month ever in primetime, according to Nielsen metered market data, fueled by high-quality men’s basketball matchups and strong performance of The Journey, which also set new ratings records.  BTN’s average primetime men’s conference basketball rating was 0.87 in the network’s eight metered markets*.  Among all national sports networks for the month, BTN trailed only ESPN in its eight metered markets.

“Our ratings growth is a testament to the high level of competition in the Big Ten, improved quality of our content, and continued increased distribution of the network,” BTN President Mark Silverman. 

Through the first 14 weeks of the season, BTN has aired 55 games featuring ranked teams, including 32 games with teams ranked in the top 10, and 20 games with teams ranked in the top 5.   In all, BTN will air more than 115 men’s basketball games this season.

Men’s basketball games contributing to the ratings growth include Minnesota at Indiana (1/12), the highest-rated regular season basketball game in BTN history, along with Ohio State at Illinois (1/5), Minnesota at Wisconsin (1/26), Michigan at Illinois (1/27), and Indiana at Purdue (1/30).