National exposure goes hand-in-hand with being one of the nation's elite programs as every regular-season University of Arizona men's basketball game potentially could be televised live in 2008-09.
For more than 30 years Wildcat basketball has been regularly featured on television, and 2008-09 is no different as all 29 regular-season games and one exhibition is slated for broadcast. The schedule features at least 13 national appearances with six games offered on Fox Sports Net, three on the ESPN family, two on CBS-TV, one on ABC-TV and one on the Versus network. Two other games could appear on the ESPN family, pending UA's results in the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off. Semifinals and finals are scheduled for Nov. 26 and 28 in New York City, while consolation rounds are scheduled for Nov. 24-25 at campus sited to be announced.
Additionally, FS Arizona will produce 12 games to be shown in the Arizona market, including one exhibition game. Longtime Tucson sports personality Dave Sitton (play-by-play) and Arizona Sports Hall of Famer Bob Elliott (color commentary) will call the action for FS Arizona.
The 2008-09 broadcast schedule tips off with a local broadcast, Incarnate Word (Nov. 6), on FS Arizona.
The Cats open the regular season on Nov. 17 against Florida Atlantic, as part of the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off, which will be carried on ESPNU. Should the Wildcats win, Arizona's second round game (Nov. 18) against either UAB or Santa Clara will be shown on ESPN2. A third regularly-scheduled game at Texas A&M (Dec. 5) will also be televised in ESPNU.
Arizona's first national appearance of the season on FSN will take place Dec. 14 vs. Gonzaga. FSN also will televise the Kansas game, Dec. 23, as well as four Pacific-10 Conference games. Included in that figure are road games at Stanford (Jan. 4), UCLA (Jan. 15) and Arizona State (Feb. 22).
UA will make two regular-season appearances on CBS-TV, as the contest against Washington State (Jan. 21) will be shown nationally, as will the Feb. 14 game vs. UCLA. Both games will be played in McKale Center.
Arizona's lone appearance on ABC-TV is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 7, with a key Pac-10 road game against Oregon. Tip-off is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. PST.
The Cats will also appear on Versus, Saturday, Dec. 20, in a non-conference game at UNLV. Tip-off is scheduled for Noon PST in Las Vegas.
For the eighth consecutive season, the Pac-10 will converge on the Staples Center in Los Angeles for the Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament, March 11-14. First round, quarterfinal and semifinal action will be shown live by Fox Sports Net, while the championship game will be televised by CBS-TV on Saturday, March 14, at 3 p.m. PST.
As many as seven games remain tentative at this point. The broadcast information and start times for the Feb. 5 game at Oregon State and the Feb. 26 game at Washington State are to be announced, while the Feb. 28, March 5 and 7 games are under consideration for broadcast as Pac-10 wildcard selections. Broadcast information for those dates will be announced 12 days prior to tip-off. The remaining information will be released as soon as it becomes available.
