• Transcript Highlights of ESPN Rights Agreement Media Call with Commissioner Aresco and ESPN’s Burke Magnus
• Women’s Basketball: ESPN Home to NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship Coverage
• NIT on ESPN: Alabama, Kentucky, Southern Mississippi and Virginia among 32 to Play in First Round

• ESPN Front Row: From the selection room to the green room, Greg Shaheen shares thoughts on his bracket journey to ESPN

• Wrestling: ESPN to Air Every Session in 2013 NCAA Wrestling Championships; Competition Begins Thursday
• Lacrosse: Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic Highlights Weekly Schedule
• Baseball: ESPNU Coverage Debuts Saturday
• Hockey: NCAA Men’s Hockey Championship Selection Show Sunday on ESPNU
• UNITE: Star Wars Bracket Results Revealed Exclusively
• Recruiting: No. 3 Player Julius Randle to Announce Commitment on ESPNU

• ESPN Images Gallery: ACC Tournament; College Lacrosse; Selection Monday; Knight & Auriemma Chat

Media contact: [email protected]

ESPN Networks Home to NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship Coverage
Coverage of all 63 games of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship Presented by Capital One – across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3, WatchESPN and ESPN FULL COURT – begins Saturday, March 23. Action concludes with the NCAA Women’s National Championship game on Tuesday, April 9, on ESPN in New Orleans.

Most of the first and second round games will be televised on ESPN2 within 12 telecast windows in a whip-around format with home market protection. ESPN3 and ESPN FULL COURT, the pay-per-view package, will offer complete games as a supplement to ESPN2’s coverage. The final 15 games, beginning with the Regional Semifinals, will have national telecast windows on ESPN or ESPN2.

First and Second Round – Regionalized & Home Market Protection
Coverage Highlights
Commentator Highlights
espnW
First and Second Round Schedule
Regional and Final Four Schedule
Thoughts from Selection Monday

The 32-team field for the oldest tournament in college basketball was announced Sunday, March 17, during the ESPNU NIT Selection Show and includes teams representing 22 conferences, led by the ACC, Pac-12 and SEC with three selections each. First Round action airs from campus sites with the No.1 seeds Alabama, Southern Mississippi and Virginia competing at home. Defending National Champion Kentucky also joins the field as a No. 1 seed, but will play at Robert Morris in Pittsburgh – Coach Calipari’s hometown – due to the unavailability of Rupp Arena.

Seven teams in the 2013 field played in the 2012 tournament, including defending NIT Champion Stanford. Three teams are making their first appearance – Charleston Southern, Mercer and Norfolk State. St. John’s will make its event-record 29th appearance. Eight teams in this year’s field have previously won an NIT title, including St. John’s, which has won a record six championships. Stanford has a chance to join St. John’s (1943, 1944) and South Carolina (2005, 2006) as the only teams to repeat. Full Schedule

ESPN Front Row: From the selection room to the green room, Greg Shaheen shares thoughts on his bracket journey to ESPN
Former NCAA Senior Vice President Greg Shaheen, who was the organizer of the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship for 12 years, spent this past weekend in Bristol serving as a “selection committee expert.”

Wrestling: ESPN to Air Every Session in 2013 NCAA Wrestling Championships; Competition Begins Thursday
ESPN began airing wrestling championships in 1980, its first year as a network, and the sport continues to find a home on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN3 and WatchESPN with full coverage of the first round, second round, quarterfinal, semifinal, medal round and final match from the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, March 21-23.

The 2013 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships begins with ESPN3’s exclusive live coverage of the first and second rounds on Thursday, March 21 at noon, and 7:30 p.m.  For the fifth year the multi-screen sports network will provide an exclusive four-screen, four-mat viewing experience unique to wrestling in the first, second and quarterfinal rounds. Full Schedule

In addition, the ESPNU Warrior Wednesday Night Game of the Week will feature No. 12 Massachusetts at No. 8 Lehigh on March 20, at 6 p.m.  ESPNU will also carry No. 20 Yale at No. 13 Princeton on Friday, March 22.

ESPN3 will carry the No. 3 North Carolina women at home against Boston College at 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Baseball: ESPNU Coverage Debuts Saturday
ESPNU’s coverage of the 2013 college baseball season will debut Saturday, March 23, at 8:30 p.m. with Texas A&M at SEC rival No. 8 Ole Miss. ESPN will showcase a record 151 regular-season and conference championship games exclusively across ESPNU, ESPN3, ESPN2 and ESPN. ESPN3 will provide coverage of more than 65 additional games in markets outside the territory of the conference footprint of that game, bringing the total to more than 215 games.

ESPNU’s weekly ACC Monday package of will return March 25 with No. 21 NC State at No. 13 Virginia at 7 p.m. The Thursday Night SEC Baseball Game of the Week on ESPNU will return March 28 with games on eight consecutive weeks. The series will debut with Texas A&M, playing its first season in the SEC, at No. 6 South Carolina at 7:30 p.m. South Carolina, winners of the 2010 and 2011 College World Series and runner-up to Arizona last season, defeated Texas A&M in the 2011 College World Series, the only previous matchup between the teams. Full Schedule

NCAA Hockey Championship Selection Show Sunday on ESPNU
This year’s 16-team field for the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Championship will be revealed on ESPNU, Sunday, March 24, at 9 p.m. during the NCAA Hockey Championship Selection Show Presented by Northwestern Mutual. Host Anish Shroff will be joined by hockey analysts Barry Melrose and Dave Starman to discuss the five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-large teams that will play in the Regionals round airing on ESPNU.

The show will also feature special in-studio guests from the Quinnipiac University hockey team, including head coach Rand Pecknold, as the team looks to secure a No. 1 seed and make only their second appearance in the NCAA championship since becoming a Division I team in 1998-99. Full Schedule

UNITE: Star Wars Bracket Results Revealed Exclusively
It’s a showdown between the Light Side and Dark Side in the first “This Is Madness” Star Wars tournament on UNITE, ESPNU’s late-night entertainment show. The first round in the official StarWars.com online competition began Monday, March 18, with fans voting for their favorite Jedi, Sith, scoundrel, rebel or bounty hunter in a bracket-style competition with results revealed exclusively nightly at midnight. A national champion will be named Tuesday, April 9.

Recruiting: No. 3 Player Julius Randle to Announce Commitment on ESPNU
The No. 3 player in the ESPN 100, Julius Randle, will make his college commitment live on ESPNU Wednesday, March 20, at 1 p.m., during the Tournament Countdown studio show. The Prestonwood Christian Academy forward is one of only three non-committed players in the Top 20 of the ESPN 100 and was recently selected to play in the 2013 McDonald’s All American game. He is deciding between Florida, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas.

Randle will be making his announcement from Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas.

Six other players in the Top 25 of the 2013 ESPN 100 have announced their college commitment on ESPNU over the past year – Jabari Parker (Duke), Andrew Harrison (Kentucky), Aaron Harrison (Kentucky), James Young (Kentucky), Demetrius Jackson (Notre Dame) and Marcus Lee (Kentucky).

ESPN Images Gallery: ACC Tournament; College Lacrosse; Selection Monday; Knight & Auriemma Chat

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