"Selection Sunday" is drawing nigh and "Road to the Final Four" teammates Turner Sports and CBS have some new plays in store for the tipoff of their coverage of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship.
Brackets and "Big Dance" partners will be announced live March 11 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. (ET) on CBS with its presentation of the NCAA Basketball Championship Selection Show.
CBS Sports's Greg Gumbel, Greg Anthony and Seth Davis will host the selection show, revealing the 68 tourney teams live from the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. CBS's Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Turner Sports's Steve Kerr will speak with Gumbel, Anthony and Davis via satellite from the site of the Big Ten Championship at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. In addition, Jeff Hathaway, chairman of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee, also joins from Indianapolis to provide a look inside the selection process behind this year's version of March Madness.
TruTV then steps to the line with Infiniti NCAA Hardcore Brackets, a new one-hour show, providing in-depth analysis of the tourney field, including for the first time the selection committee's team No. 1 to team No. 68 rankings.
Gumbel will serve as the host, along with Turner's Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, who were part of the selection show in 2011. Anthony, Davis, Hathaway and Mike Bobinski, vice chair of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee for the 2012-13 season, all will discuss the brackets, with the latter two furnishing exclusive details regarding the committee's deliberations throughout the weekend. The show is part of the NCAA's expanded educational initiative to enhance understanding of the championship selection process.
Additionally, the NCAA Basketball Championship Selection Show will be available online and mobile via NCAA March Madness Live, which can be launched from NCAA.com, CBSSports.com and SI.com.
As was the case last year during the first of CBS and Turner's 14-year, $10.8 billon partnership, the first ball will be tossed up on the 67-game tourney by TruTV. The cable network, which counts some 92 million subscribers, begins matters with the NCAA First Four on Tuesday, March 13 and Wednesday, March 14, presented by Northwestern Mutual. March Madness concludes with the National Championship game Monday, April 2 on CBS.
