NCAA March Madness on Demand begins its annual NCAA Tournament coverage today, Thursday. The first game of the tournament will be at 12:20pm as No. 3 Xavier takes on No. 14 Georgia in Washington, DC.

NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) is the online video player that allows users to view all 63 games of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.

MMOD airs every game from the first round of the tournament through the Men’s Final Four in San Antonio, including the Championship game on April 7.

NCAA March Madness on Demand is produced in partnership with CBS Sports, CBS College Sports Network and the NCAA.

2008 NCAA Tournament TV listings

The National NCAA tourney TV listings were just published (March 17) at CBS Sports. The tourney games will be on CBS, CBS-HD, and CSTV (now CBS College Sports).

The play-in (cough cough opening round game) tips off on Tuesday night on ESPN and ESPN-HD, and squares off Mount Saint Mary’s with Coppin State, the team with the 20 losses.

The CBS studio hosts will be the same as before (Seth Davis, Bryan Gumbel and Clark Kellogg), and the eight announcer teams are the usual faces, but with one addition. Youngster Carter Blackburn of CSTV will be “trained” by Dick Enberg (old enough to be his great grandpa) and Jay Bilas (tall enough to be his grandpa).

Action begins on Thursday at 9am pacific (noon eastern), and CBS decided to start things off with an intriguing game, Xavier facing off the Georgia Bulldogs, aka the Georgia Miracles!

The 2008 NIT TV listings

The TV listings are embedded in the brackets at the NIT website (embedded PDF file). Direct link to the PDF file right here (PDF file). Every single NIT game (31 total) will be carried by the ESPN family of networks, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN Classic.
The inaugural CBI TV listings
The games are available online and at Fox College Sports. Details here. Action tips off on Tuesday March 18, 2008 with two games, and continues on Wednesday with two more games. We are not sure which games will be available on local channels or regional FSNs.

Detailed daily TV listings (ALL TIMES PACIFIC)

Thur March 20, 2008
*** check local CBS station for listings in your area ***
*** all times pacific ***
7am to 9am: SportsCenterU, ESPN
9am to 2pm: NCAA Tournament begins!, CBS, National schedule
9am to 145pm: March Madness Central on CSTV (CBS CS)
11am to 1pm: Tourney Gameday, ESPN2
145pm, 1am: NCAA tourney from Anaheim: Cornell vs Stanford, CSTV (CBS College Sports)
4pm to 10pm: NCAA Tournament afternoon session, CBS
4pm to 10pm: March Madness Central on CSTV (CBS CS)
All night: March Madness Highlights (one hour long), CSTV (CBS CS)
9pm: NIT Second round: Southern Illinois at Arizona State, ESPN2 (first one to 39 wins!)
Fri March 21, 2008
*** check local CBS station for listings in your area ***
7am to 9am: SportsCenterU, ESPN
9am to 2pm: NCAA Tournament Round 1 Day 2!, CBS, National schedule
9am: NCAA Tourney, CSTV (CBS College Sports)
11am to 230pm: College Gameday, ESPN
2pm, 1am: NCAA tourney from Anaheim, CSTV (CBS College Sports)
4pm to 10pm: NCAA Tournament afternoon session, CBS
1am: NCAA tourney repeat, CSTV

NCAA Tournament Schedule:

No. 4 Washington State (24-8) vs. No. 13 Winthrop (22-11) in Denver, 7:20 p.m.: The Winthrop Eagles’ three-man senior class has won 101 games, including one in the NCAA Tournament last season, so they shouldn’t be bothered by the Cougars’ defense that holds opponents to 57 points per game.

No. 5 Notre Dame (24-7) vs. No. 12 George Mason (23-10) in Raleigh, N.C., 9:40 p.m.:The Fighting Irish’s inside-outside combination of Luke Harangody and Kyle McAlarney should be too much for the Patriots, who will be trying to be this year’s Cinderella story.




MIDWEST REGIONAL

No. 1 Kansas (31-3) vs. No. 16 Portland State (23-9) in Omaha, Neb., 12:25 p.m.: The Jayhawks should make the Vikings’ first NCAA Tournament appearance a quick one.

No. 8 UNLV (26-7) vs. No. 9 Kent State (28-6) in Omaha, Neb., 2:45 p.m.: The Golden Flashes are seeded with the team from the big conferences for a reason: They are tough with a well-balanced offense.

No. 6 USC (21-11) vs. No. 11 Kansas State (20-11) in Omaha, Neb., 7:10 p.m.: If this were a freshman vs. freshman matchup, Michael Beasley and the Wildcats would prevail over O.J. Mayo and the Trojans. It’s five-on-five, though, and Mayo’s supporting cast is better on paper.

No. 3 Wisconsin (29-4) vs. No. 14 Cal State Fullerton (24-8) in Omaha, Neb., 9:40 p.m.:The Badgers swept the Big Ten titles - regular season and conference tournament. The Titans are in the tournament for the first time in 30 years. Bo Ryan teams aren’t known to have letdowns.



SOUTH REGIONAL



No. 5 Michigan State (25-8) vs. No. 12 Temple (21-12) in Denver, 12:30 p.m.: If John Chaney were still coaching the Owls, the Spartans would be obsessed with preparing for the matchup zone. The difference should be the Spartans’ bulky front line.

No. 4 Pittsburgh (26-9) vs. No. 13 Oral Roberts (24-8) in Denver, 2:50 p.m.: The Panthers are one of the hottest teams in the country coming off the Big East Tournament run. The Titans are in their third consecutive NCAA Tournament, but they went 1-3 against teams from the power conferences this season.

No. 6 Marquette (24-9) vs. No. 11 Kentucky (18-12) in Anaheim, Calif., 2:30 p.m.: The Golden Eagles have one of the best defensive backcourts in Jerel McNeal and Dominic James, and the Wildcats averaged over 16 turnovers per game.

No. 3 Stanford (26-7) vs. No. 14 Cornell (22-5) in Anaheim, Calif., 5 p.m.: The halftime matchup of the debate teams would be close, the basketball game shouldn’t be because of the Cardinal’s ability to dominate up front.

If you want to scout any potential Bulls Draft Picks, here is the link for: MARCH MADNESS ON DEMAND

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers Head Coach Fred Hill has been invited by CBS to participate in NCAA Tournament analysis as a part of its groundbreaking March Madness on Demand (MMOD) live Internet presentation of the 2008 men’s basketball championship. Hill will serve as an in-studio analyst on Thursday evening, March 27.

CBSSports.com, in partnership with CBS Sports, CSTV and the NCAA, announced in February that this season, for the first time, its MMOD service would give users the ability to view 63 games of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, from the first round of the tournament through the Final Four and championship in San Antonio.

NCAA March Madness on Demand is the Emmy award-winning video player that provides live streaming video of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. Since its inception in 2003, MMOD has traditionally provided live video of the first 56 games of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship as they are broadcast by CBS Sports, with local broadcasts being subject to blackouts.

“In its sixth year, March Madness on Demand continues to maximize the network’s NCAA bundled rights across all platforms of the CBS Corporation with the wide distribution of CBS Sports’ game coverage, promoted by CSTV and available via CBSSports.com and NCAA.com,” said Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports. “The expansion, to include all 63 games, will enhance the total March Madness experience of college basketball fans everywhere.”

“Getting more people involved - in more ways - in March Madness is a central goal for the NCAA and March Madness on Demand continues to deliver,” said Greg Shaheen, Senior Vice President for Basketball and Business Strategies at the NCAA. “Whether through broadcast coverage of the tournament on CBS Sports and CSTV, streaming live video from the Emmy award-winning March Madness on Demand on NCAA.com, mobile coverage and highlights on CBS Sports Mobile or the tournament brackets application on Facebook, more fans now have more ways to view, follow, debate and enjoy March Madness than ever before.”

“It’s a tribute to the leadership at CBS Sports and the NCAA that CBSSports.com can be the first media company to provide a live Internet broadcast of a major sporting event in its entirety to fans around the world with no restrictions and free of charge,” said Jason Kint, Senior Vice President and General Manager, CBSSports.com. “We expect a record number of hoops fans to be engaged in the tournament this year while at work, at home or on the go via CBS Sports Mobile.”

As has been the case since it was first offered for free in 2006, NCAA March Madness on Demand will once again be the centerpiece of the CBSSports.com coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. Additional aspects of the multi-platform coverage of the championship across CBSSports.com and CBS Sports Mobile include up-to-the-second scores and statistics for every game of the tournament through live scoreboards and GameCenters, expert analysis, commentary, game matchups, predictions and more from the CBSSports.com team of writers, highlighted by NCAA basketball expert Gary Parrish and bracket games on CBSSports.com and the recently launched “CBSSports.com Tournament Brackets” application on Facebook.(www.facebook.com/brackets)

Launching in early March, NCAA March Madness on Demand will be available at NCAA.com (mmod.ncaa.com) as well as via MMOD links on CBSSports.com and CSTV.com.

To have the best opportunity to view live streaming video from the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, fans are urged to register for MMOD to obtain VIP status. Fans who don’t have VIP status will be placed in the General Admission area where they will experience longer wait times to get into the MMOD player if it is full on game day(s).

The 2008 MMOD video player will showcase a wider screen (640 x 360 pixels) along with additional features such as live scoreboards and the infamous “Boss Button.” CBSSports.com will again produce a live halftime show. “At The Half” will start when the first game goes to halftime and continue all the way until the last game in that window returns to second-half action.

In 2006, MMOD was presented free of charge for the first time since its debut in 2003, producing tremendous traffic results resulting in one of the largest live Internet events ever and one many experts called a watershed moment in media history. In total, 265,973 fans registered for VIP status for MMOD in 2006, a number that eventually led to 1,277,266 unique users who watched a total of 2,130,369 hours (127,822,140 minutes) of live streaming video.

Free access to 2008 NCAA March Madness on Demand is made possible by presenting sponsors and NCAA Corporate Champions Coca-Cola, Pontiac and AT&T.

The USD men’s basketball team was taking the floor just as Connecticut was coming off.

And Toreros senior guard Matt Delzell was struck by the number of fans, perhaps 3,000 to 4,000, who were in the stands at the Spokane Arena.

“Most of them were there to see UConn, not us,” Delzell recalled. “We rarely had that many people for our games – I was amazed. This was for a practice that was really just a shootaround.

“Watching our practices at home, we usually had the equipment manager and maybe a janitor.”

It was March 19, 2003. The last time USD participated in the NCAA Tournament, as the Toreros will again tomorrow when they take on Connecticut in an opening-round game at Tampa, Fla.

The half hour-apiece practice and media interview sessions for the eight teams assembled in Spokane, Wash., that day five years ago were done according to a schedule set by the NCAA – the same sort of routine/schedule that USD, UConn and fellow Tampa assignees Drake, Western Kentucky, Clemson, Villanova, Vanderbilt and Siena will be going through this morning at the St. Pete Times Forum.

The 2003 USD team was preparing for a game the following day against Stanford. Like its present-day counterpart, USD had qualified for the Big Dance by winning the West Coast Conference Tournament on its own Jenny Craig Pavilion floor. Tournament MVP Jason Keep sparked a victory over Gonzaga in the final that would be the Toreros’ last over the Zags until MVP Brandon Johnson led the way at the same site and under similar circumstances a week ago Monday.

The game against Stanford was played against the backdrop of America poised for war in Iraq. Not long after the Toreros dropped a hard-fought 77-69 decision, TV screens in the media room changed from showing college kids playing hoops to green, night-vision camera images of bombs exploding in Baghdad.

The war still goes on, and life has gone on for the USD players. And still-vivid memories of five years ago have been stirred by the current team’s tournament quest, which they hope will result in USD’s first NCAA Tournament win (USD is 0-3).

“There’s certainly no better feeling for a college basketball player than being in the NCAA Tournament,” said Delzell, who works for a marketing firm in Dallas.

“I personally don’t think it can be duplicated on the collegiate level in any sport. Knowing that this year’s team is going to get to feel what we did in 2003, and to be able to kind of relive it through them, is very special.”

The 6-foot-10, 280-pound Keep and 6-7, 230-pound Jason Blair were a formidable front-line 1-2 punch, averaging 18.2 and 16.8 points, respectively, and combining to average more than 16 rebounds. Delzell and fellow senior Roy Morris were a solid backcourt combination. Sophomore Corey Belser, a demon defender, completed the starting lineup.

Nick Lewis, a 6-10 redshirt freshman, was a force as the sixth man/first front-line replacement.

USD wasn’t thrilled with an NCAA assignment in Spokane, a lovely city but one they went to every year to play Gonzaga. USD didn’t bring a pep band, so school officials contracted with a Spokane high school for a group to provide musical support.

The rendition of the fight song was recognizable only to the staunchest of alumni supporters.

USD overcame a shaky start and held a slim lead entering the final three minutes against Stanford before Josh Childress, now with the Atlanta Hawks, timed a jump perfectly to block a Keep slam attempt and turn the tide to Stanford.

Keep, currently playing in the Philippines for a team called the Welcoat Dragons, responded to an e-mail request for his ‘03 memories by writing:

“The most vivid memory would obviously be the final seconds of the WCC Tournament, but the NCAA Tournament will always hold a special place in my heart.

“I miss having those guys around me. I give them credit for making me the man I am today.”

Blair, playing professionally in Plasencia, Spain, near Madrid, wrote:

“My greatest memory from the WCC Tournament was the crowd rushing the floor after the win. From the NCAA Tournament, it was being in the game at the end, having a chance to knock off Stanford and the whole crowd cheering for USD.”

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