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Clemson Pro Day on Thursday Kicks Off ACC Network’s Coverage of ACC Football Pro Days

umeektv — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 15:42:41 +0000

ACC Network (ACCN), the 24/7 national platform dedicated to ACC sports, will present of several ACC Football Pro Days across the network’s platforms beginning with the conference champion Clemson Tigers on Thursday, March 11.

Jordan Cornette will host Clemson Pro Day (10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET, ACCN) from ESPN’s Bristol, Conn. studio joined by his teammates from the The Huddle – Eric Mac Lain, EJ Manuel and Mark Richt. ESPN NFL Draft analyst and Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy and NFL front office insider Mike Tannenbaum will also provide insight throughout Thursday’s coverage.

Notable participants include: wide receivers Amari Rodgers, Cornell Powell and Diondre Overton, tight end J.C. Chalk, and running backs Travis Etienne and Adam Choice.

Typical pro day events include: 40-yard dash, bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 20-yard shuttle and 60-yard shuttle among other position specific drills.

Additionally, ACCN will televise Miami Pro Day on Monday, March 29, while ACC Network Extra (ACCNX), the network’s digital platform available on the ESPN App, will carry Pitt Pro Day (March 17), Florida State Pro Day (March 22), Virginia Tech Pro Day (March 26), Duke Pro Day (March 29), Louisville Pro Day (March 30) and Wake Forest Pro Day (March 31) through the end of March.

Details surrounding Miami Pro Day and events on ACCNX will be announced in the coming weeks.

About ACC Network

Owned and operated by ESPN in partnership with the Atlantic Coast Conference, ACC Network (ACCN) and its digital platform ACCNX is a 24/7 national network dedicated to ACC sports that launched on August 22, 2019. ACCN features regular-season and tournament games from across the conference’s 27 sponsored sports plus a complement of news and information shows and original programming. ESPN has been televising ACC content since 1979 and has exclusive rights to every conference-controlled game across all sports and championships.

Carriage agreements are in place with the following video providers: AT&T TV, AT&T TV NOW, Cox, DIRECTV, DISH Network, fuboTV, Google Fiber, Hulu Live TV, Optimum, Sling TV, Spectrum TV, Suddenlink, TVision, Verizon Fios, YouTube TV, members of the NCTC, NRTC and Vivicast, among others. All ACCN games will also be available on the ESPN app to authenticated subscribers. Fans interested in learning more about ACCN can visit www.GetACCN.com.

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CBS Sports and Turner Sports Present 2021 NCAA March Madness Selection Show

umeektv — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 03:00:50 +0000

on CBS, Sunday, March 14, at 6 p.m. ET

Turner Sports and CBS Sports will present the 2021 NCAA March Madness Selection Show, featuring the exclusive live first-time announcement of the pairings for the 2021 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, on CBS – Sunday, March 14, at 6 p.m. ET. The one-hour Selection Show, produced in partnership between CBS Sports and Turner Sports, will be broadcast live from New York.

The Selection Show will begin with the release of the full bracket by region as well as reactions from teams as they find out if they made this year’s field of 68. Host Greg Gumbel will be joined in New York by analysts Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis. Selection Committee Chair Mitch Barnhart will also join remotely from Indianapolis for a live interview to discuss the bracket.

The NCAA Selection Show will also be available on NCAA March Madness Live, the official live streaming product of March Madness available via web, mobile and connected devices.

Turner Sports and CBS Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games from the 2021 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship across four national television networks – TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV – and via NCAA March Madness Live.

CBS will broadcast this year’s NCAA Final Four National Semifinals on Saturday, April 3, along with the National Championship on Monday, April 5.

TBS will televise the NCAA Final Four National Semifinals and National Championship in 2022, with the events alternating between CBS Sports and Turner Sports each year throughout the partnership.

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Kansas beats Duke and its Elite Eight demons with an overtime classic

umeektv — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 09:57:49 +0000

OMAHA — The habitual winners at Duke might cringe years into the future over a basketball so bloody indecisive that it seemed to touch every smidgen of iron as it lollygagged around the rim, kissed the backboard, ventured back to the rim and then rolled off toward the floor as if deciding it craved overtime. The habitual winners at Kansas might revel years into the future over a basketball so blasted gorgeous that when it went up from the left corner and arced downward, it seemed not so much to swish as to smash down, as if deciding it aimed to stoke some bedlam.

Meanwhile, the 17,579 witnesses inside CenturyLink Center on Sunday evening will chatter years into the future over their ticket-buying luck at seeing this Midwest Region final because of all the gasps and palpitations and frenzy and quality it provided. And at last, the heavy majority that yearned for the Jayhawks will know their team surmounted a big heap of difficult stuff because they whistled boldly through the corridor of their goblins and haunts, the Elite Eight, and the 85-81 overtime win signaled Kansas could withstand both that and the constellation of stars at Duke.

“It’s hard to describe, man,” said Kansas senior leader Devonte’ Graham, the consensus all-American whose gut the Jayhawks’ Elite Eight losses in 2016 and 2017 had attempted to mangle. Yet describe, the participants did. Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose record in this oft-torturous round in the NCAA tournament dipped to a still-celestial 12-3 and caused him an ashen final walk down the hallway afterward, called it “an honor to play in this game.” Kansas Coach Bill Self, whose reddened reaction upon the final horn hinted at apparent demon-banishment, called it “a big-boy game” and “two blue bloods that’ll beat each other’s heads in” and “a heavyweight fight” and “the second-best win that we’ve ever had,” after only the 2008 title game against Memphis.

“I would have been proud to coach in that game even if the outcome was different,” he said.

Indeed, Kansas ventures to the third Final Four of Self’s 15 seasons — and its first in six years — by riding a demanding rodeo of a game that played out with ludicrous evenness. Kansas made 30 of 69 field goal attempts; Duke made 30 of 70. Kansas used rebounding by scrapping committee to beat Duke on the boards 47-32; Duke used beyond-freshman moxie from its freshmen to commit only 11 turnovers to 18 from its opponent. Duke sprang for five players in double figures; Kansas presented four with another guy at nine points. Duke giant Wendell Carter Jr. fouled out in overtime; Kansas giant Udoka Azubuike fouled out two minutes before overtime.

Duke (29-8) never led by more than four.

Kansas (31-7) never led by more than seven, and when it did, with 16:06 left, Duke cleaned up most of that in a jiffy.

The Blue Devils received a fine game from their lead star, Marvin Bagley III, with 16 points and 10 rebounds and two assists; the Jayhawks had a soaring game from one of their two lead stars, Malik Newman, the transfer from Mississippi State who scored 32 points, including the paramount shot from the corner with 1:49 left in overtime. Duke had large splashes from its slightly less famous freshmen, Trevon Duval and Gary Trent Jr., who scored 20 and 17 points and also made confident drives; Kansas had shrewd Lagerald Vick operating from the middle of the Duke zone with 14 points, Graham with six assists and six rebounds, and 6-foot-8 senior Svi Mykhailiuk with 11 points and 10 rebounds and pretty damned good defense on the 6-11 Bagley and . . .

And Kansas’s second-biggest shot.

It came with 26 seconds left in regulation, and Mykhailiuk’s audacity in taking it exemplified Kansas’s audacity all told. He had just missed two open three-point shots as things had begun to creak with a hint of familiarity for the Jayhawks. After Duke senior captain Grayson Allen’s four perfect free throws in the penultimate minute pushed the Blue Devils ahead 72-69, Newman missed with 1:05 left, Bagley rebounded, Carter missed with 36 seconds left, 6-9 freshman Silvio De Sousa rebounded, and March had gone into franticness as only March can.

The ball wound up with Mykhailiuk at the right of the top of the key, and his shot sang its way through, tying the score, leaving the whole heaving occasion with the two shots that might hang on in memory.

With the seconds ticking more furiously than normal, the game distilled to Allen against Newman, one-on-one. Newman’s defense excelled. Allen’s move wasn’t bad. He wound up backing off at the left side of the lane and sending up a promising shot that could not seem to help itself from skittering around in fickleness and tantalizing all the spectators.

It rolled off, the horn sounded, and soon Allen’s fine and checkered four-year college career would conclude with him at his locker in a silent room, dutifully answering questions with a skill he had learned to master. “It’s way different than a [regular] loss,” he said, “because with a loss, you know you’ve got something else. There’s two parts in me, one still fighting” for the closing Final Four dream, “and the other, ‘Sorry, it’s done.’ That’s why it’s really hard to grasp.”

In between the fickle ball and that, the teams had insisted upon remaining tied, this time at 78-78, as the two-minute mark of overtime arrived. In tension, Kansas forged beauty. Graham kicked a pass to Vick amid the zone, and Vick, whom Newman credited rightly with “a great job in the middle,” never touched the ground in redirecting that thing hurriedly to the left corner to Newman. Newman had spent much of the game driving with an unafraid abandon because “Coach just told us to keep attacking the zone,” and by getting “paint touches, then the three-point line would open up.”

Here the three-point line opened up, and now he lofted one to try to put a pinnacle on his hot March and let Kansas lead and let Duke chase, let Duke fizzle on offense until the score became 85-78 and let Kansas’s heart both intensify and then leap, all of which happened after that prettiest of shots smashed down.

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LeBron James calls NCAA ‘corrupt’ in wake of scandals

umeektv — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 02:15:09 +0000

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio — In light of the federal investigation into college basketball recruiting, Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James called the NCAA a “corrupt” organization and said the NBA should further develop its minor league system to give young ballplayers a viable alternative.

“I don’t know if there’s any fixing the NCAA. I don’t think there is,” James said Tuesday. “It’s what’s been going on for many, many, many, many years. I don’t know how you can fix it. I don’t see how you can fix it.”

James skipped college to enter the NBA right out of high school in 2003, but he had major Division I schools lining up for his services before he made that decision..

“I can’t even talk about that, man,” James said. “Me and my mom was poor, I’ll tell you that, and they expected me to step foot on a college campus and not to go to the NBA? We weren’t going to be poor for long, I’ll tell you that. That’s a fact.”

James questioned the compensation that some student-athletes receive — a free education — when the institutions they enroll in benefit the most from their athletic performance, not their academic one.

“Obviously, I’ve never been a part of it, so I don’t know all the ins and outs about it,” James said. “I do know what five-star athletes bring to a campus, both in basketball and football. I know how much these college coaches get paid. I know how much these colleges are gaining off these kids. … I’ve always heard the narrative that they get a free education, but you guys are not bringing me on campus to get an education, you guys are bringing me on it to help you get to a Final Four or to a national championship, so it’s just a weird thing.”

James’ two sons, 13-year-old LeBron Jr. and 10-year-old Bryce, are highly touted youth basketball players who are on track to play in college. He said they will have to weigh their options as a family, with NCAA enrollment not a foregone conclusion by any means.

“I’m not a fan of the NCAA,” James said. “I love watching March Madness. I think that’s incredible. I’m not a fan of how the kids don’t benefit from none of this, so it’s kind of a fine line and I’ve got a couple boys that could be headed in that direction, so there’s going to be some decisions that we as a family have to make. But I know, as the NBA, we have to figure out a way that we can shore up our farm league, and if kids feel like they don’t want to be a part of that NCAA program, then we have something here for them to be able to jump back on and not have to worry about going overseas all the time, I guess.

“We have to figure that out, but kids getting paid is nothing new under the sun. You all seen ‘Blue Chips’? It’s a real movie, seriously. … The NCAA is corrupt, we know that. Sorry, it’s going to make headlines, but it’s corrupt.”

James said the NBA can step in by expanding its G League, which was founded in 2001 and now includes 26 teams — each individually affiliated with an NBA franchise — with an expansion to 27 planned for the 2018-19 season.

“We have to shore up our G League, continue to expand our G League,” James said. “… I just looked at it like the farm league, like in baseball. Or you look at pros overseas; some of those guys get signed at 14, but they get put into this farm system where they’re able to grow and be around other professionals for three or four years. Then, when they’re ready, they hit the national team, or when they’re ready, they become a pro. So I think us, we have to kind of really figure that out, how we can do that.

James cited Argentine soccer sensation Lionel Messi, who began playing professional soccer at 13 in Barcelona, as a success story that basketball in the United States can emulate.

“I think it’s a cool thing how they do that over there,” James said. “They have a system in place that maybe we can copycat. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

James clapped his hands together as he lauded the G League’s direction. But he also said he plans to talk to NBA commissioner Adam Silver about further plans for expansion the league can potentially make to support teenage basketball players.

“We’ve had so many call-ups in the last 10 years and guys have actually been max guys, champions, people who are inspiring guys because they took that route,” James said. “We’ve also had guys that went overseas and then came back into the G League and been a part of our league. So we’re doing a great job, but we want to continue to get better and better. I do like this, I’ve got a real good idea about this whole farm system thing, but I want to go over it with the commish and some of the people. That’s a longer dialogue.”

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Trump plans to attend Georgia-Alabama National Championship in Atlanta

Michael Walker — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 12:00:23 +0000

ATLANTA – President Donald Trump is planning to attend the national college football championship game between Georgia and Alabama on Monday in Atlanta, according to the Atlanta Police Department.

He is set to be hosted by Nick Ayers, a Georgia native who is Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, and his wife Jamie Ayers. First Lady Melania Trump is also expected to attend the game, which will be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

APD says it is working with the U.S. Secret Service on security plans.

It’s not immediately certain whether two other top Trump allies in Georgia – Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Sen. David Perdue – will join them.

Trump and his aides have focused their attention on the college football playoffs even as he continues a war of words with the NFL over players who protest social injustice during the national anthem.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders opened her press briefing Tuesday by congratulating the SEC schools “from two great states, both in the heart of Trump country” for bowl victories that propelled them to the championship.

Trump carried both states in 2016 – Alabama by nearly 30 points and Georgia by about five. But Alabama voters dealt Trump a blow in December by electing Democrat Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate over Republican Roy Moore, who Trump endorsed.

When pressed on Moore’s defeat, Sanders said she was simply trying to congratulate “two great football teams in the greatest conference in the country.”

As the room erupted into laughter, she added: “Which I’m sure that most of you will all agree, even those that don’t live in one of those lucky states.”

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