Updated Week Three TV Predictions for 2015

The changes to week three are extremely minor.  Moved one FS1 game to FOX to create a FOX doubleheader at 4pm & 8pm since FS1's MLB game will be at 7pm ET.  Changed the 12pm ABC game to a reverse mirror based on a suggestion in the original guesses post.

Thursday
7:30pm ESPN: Clemson at Louisville (confirmed)
7:30pm FS1: Rice at North Texas

Friday
8pm ESPN: Florida St. at Boston College (confirmed for this date)
10pm CBSSN: Utah at Fresno St.
10:15pm FS1: New Mexico at Arizona St.

Saturday
12pm ABC/ESPN2: Nebraska at Miami (FL)
12pm ABC/ESPN2: Virginia Tech at Purdue
12pm ESPN: South Carolina at Georgia
12pm FS1: Tulsa at Oklahoma
12pm ESPNU: USF at Maryland
12pm ESPNEWS: Northwestern at Duke
12pm FSN: UTSA at Oklahoma St.
12pm CBSSN: Wake Forest at Army (semi-confirmed)
12pm BTN: UNLV at Michigan
12pm BTN: Kent St. at Minnesota
12pm SEC: Connecticut at Missouri
12pm SEC: Western Carolina at Tennessee
12:30pm ACC Network: Central Michigan at Syracuse
12:30pm ACC RSNs: William & Mary at Virginia
1pm Pac-12: Colorado St. vs Colorado
3:30pm ABC/ESPN: SMU at TCU
3:30pm ABC/ESPN: Rutgers at Penn St.
3:30pm CBS: Ole Miss at Alabama
3:30pm NBC: Georgia Tech at Notre Dame
3:30pm ESPN2: Pittsburgh at Iowa
3:30pm ESPNU: Illinois at North Carolina
3:30pm FSN: Louisiana Tech at Kansas St.
3:30pm CBSSN: East Carolina at Navy (confirmed)
3:30pm BTN: Northern Illinois at Ohio St.
3:30pm BTN: Air Force at Michigan St.
4pm FOX: BYU at UCLA
4pm SEC: Austin Peay at Vanderbilt
4:30pm Pac-12: San Jose St. at Oregon St.
4:30pm Pac-12: Wyoming at Washington St.
7pm ESPN2: Texas Tech at Arkansas
7pm ESPNU: Nevada at Texas A&M
7pm CBSSN: NC State at Old Dominion
7:30pm SEC: Florida at Kentucky
7:30pm SEC: Northwestern St. at Mississippi St.
7:45pm ESPN: Auburn at LSU
8pm ABC: Stanford at USC
8pm FOX: California at Texas
8pm BTN: Troy at Wisconsin
8pm BTN: Western Kentucky at Indiana
10pm Pac-12: Northern Arizona at Arizona
10pm Pac-12: Georgia St. at Oregon
10:30pm ESPN2: Utah St. at Washington

Updated Week Two TV Predictions for 2015

The amended items are a bit minimal here.  They involved FOX's choice of game, the possibility / probability of Longhorn Network airing Rice at Texas, and what appears to be a confirmation from Boise St. that the road game at BYU will be a Saturday game.  

Here's what I initially though week two would look like.

Thursday
8pm FS1: Kansas St. at UTSA

Friday
8pm FS1: Miami (FL) at FAU
9:30pm ESPN2: Minnesota at Colorado St.

Saturday
11:30am ESPN: USF at Florida St. (confirmed)
12pm ABC: Notre Dame at Virginia
12pm FS1: Iowa at Iowa St.
12pm ESPNU: Miami (OH) at Wisconsin
12pm ESPNEWS: Indiana St. at Purdue
12pm FSN: UTEP at Texas Tech
12pm CBSSN: North Texas at SMU 
12pm BTN: Washington St. at Rutgers
12pm BTN: Buffalo at Penn St.
12pm BTN: Eastern Illinois at Northwestern
12pm SEC: Jacksonville St. at Auburn
12pm SEC: Fresno St. at Ole Miss
12:30pm ACC Network: Houston at Louisville
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Tulane at Georgia Tech
2pm Pac-12: Utah St. at Utah
3:30pm CBS: Oklahoma at Tennessee
3:30pm ABC: Oregon St. at Michigan
3:30pm ESPN2: Hawai'i at Ohio St.
3:30pm ESPNU: Wake Forest at Syracuse
3:30pm FSN: Memphis at Kansas
3:30pm CBSSN: Louisiana Tech at Western Kentucky
3:30pm BTN: FIU at Indiana
3:30pm BTN: Western Illinois at Illinois
3:30pm BTN: South Alabama at Nebraska
4pm ESPNEWS: Temple at Cincinnati 
4pm SEC: Georgia at Vanderbilt
4pm SEC: Toledo at Arkansas
6pm Pac-12: Massachusetts at Colorado
6pm Pac-12: Sacramento St. at Washington
7pm ESPN2: Middle Tennessee at Alabama
7pm ESPNU: East Carolina at Florida
7pm CBSSN: Arizona at Nevada
7:30pm FOX: UCF at Stanford
7:30pm SEC:Kentucky at South Carolina
7:30pm SEC: Ball St. at Texas A&M
7:45pm ESPN: LSU at Mississippi St.
8pm ABC: Oregon at Michigan St.
8pm ESPNEWS: Missouri at Arkansas St.
8pm Longhorn: Rice at Texas
10pm Pac-12: Idaho at USC
10pm Pac-12: Cal Poly at Arizona St.
10:15pm ESPN2: Boise St. at BYU
10:15pm FS1: San Diego St. at California
10:30pm CBSSN: UCLA at UNLV

Updated Week One TV Predictions for 2015

Updates to the original week one TV predictions.

Games not listed will be available as webcasts or regional telecasts.

Thursday
7pm SEC: North Carolina vs. South Carolina
7:30pm ESPNU: Oklahoma St. at Central Michigan
8pm CBSSN: Duke at Tulane (network confirmed)
8pm ESPN: TCU at Minnesota
9pm FS1: Michigan at Utah
10pm Pac-12: UTSA at Arizona
11:30pm CBSSN: Colorado at Hawai'i

Friday
7pm ESPN: Michigan St. at Western Michigan
7pm CBSSN: Fordham at Army (confirmed)
8pm FS1: Mississippi St. at Southern Miss 
8pm ESPNU: Baylor at SMU
8pm Pac-12 Networks: Weber St. at Oregon St. (time confirmed)
9pm BTN: Kent St. at Illinois (confirmed)
10:15pm ESPN: Washington at Boise St.

Saturday
12pm ESPN: BYU at Nebraska
12pm ESPNU: Penn St. at Temple
12pm FSN: Georgia Southern at West Virginia
12pm CBSSN: Colgate at Navy (confirmed)
12pm SEC: UL-Lafayette at Kentucky
12pm BTN: Southern Illinois at Indiana
12pm BTN: Norfolk St. at Rutgers
12:30pm ACC Network: Texas St. at Florida St.
12:30pm ACC RSNs: Troy at NC State
3pm Pac-12: Eastern Washington at Oregon
3:30pm ABC: Arizona St. vs. Texas A&M
3:30pm ESPN: UL-Monroe at Georgia
3:30pm ESPNU: UT Martin at Ole Miss
3:30pm CBSSN: FIU at UCF
3:30pm BTN: Richmond at Maryland
3:30pm BTN: Illinois St. at Iowa
4pm SEC: Bowling Green vs. Tennessee
4pm SEC: Southeast Missouri at Missouri
6:30pm Pac-12: Portland St. at Washington St.
7pm ESPN: Auburn vs. Louisville
7pm ESPNU: New Mexico St. at Florida
7:30pm NBC: Texas at Notre Dame
7:30pm SEC: UTEP at Arkansas
7:30pm SEC: McNeese St. at LSU
8pm ABC: Alabama vs. Wisconsin
8pm BTN: Stanford at Northwestern
10pm FS1: Arkansas St. at USC
10pm Pac-12: Grambling at California
10:30pm ESPN: Virginia at UCLA

Sunday
11:30am ESPN2: South Carolina St. vs. UAPB
3pm FS1: Purdue at Marshall
7pm SEC: Western Kentucky at Vanderbilt

Monday
8pm ESPN: Ohio St. at Virginia Tech

Credits earned in 2015 NCAA Tournament by Conference

NCAA credits are earned for each game played before the Final Four.  Games in the First Four also are eligible to earn credits.

Per Forbes from last year, a credit was expected to earn $255,379 as a starting point per year with the 2015 tournament.  The unit is paid in full over six years with around 2% growth per year.

Updated going into the Final Four.  No credits can be earned during the final three games, so this list is complete.

ACC - 21
American - 3
Atlantic 10 - 5
Big 12 - 12
Big East - 11
Big Ten - 18
C-USA - 2
Pac-12 - 12
MEAC - 2
Missouri Valley - 5
Mountain West - 4
NEC - 2
SEC - 11
Sun Belt - 2
WCC - 5

Any conference not listed has earned a single credit in this tournament so far.

Here's how conferences did in the 2014 tournament.

A Few MBK Early Season Event Notes for 2015-16

* Thanks to Jeff Wirth on this one.  The 2K Sports Classic is moving to a Friday-Sunday event, at least for 2015.  Jeff found that one of Billy Joel's concerts is scheduled for Thursday 11/19/15.  My guess is that the need for exclusive use of the facility for setup & tear down means that MSG was unavailable to host the basketball event on Wednesday 11/18.  It might also mean that St. John's, if they were to host a game in the Gavitt Tipoff series, would be locked into a game on Tuesday 11/17 if they were to host a game at MSG instead of at Carnesecca Arena.

The times on Friday (5pm start) still allow for a football game on ESPN2 at 9:30pm (more likely than ESPN I believe due to NBA) and the Sunday start at 1pm might indicate that ESPN will show the championship round after Sunday NFL Countdown, assuming ESPN2 carries the Hall of Fame Tipoff games, along with games from their Charleston & Puerto Rico events airing over ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.

* Sports Business Journal reports that FOX Sports will take over additional duties for the Las Vegas Classic & Las Vegas Invitational early season MBK events, including team selection.  Per Blogging The Bracket, six of the eight "host" spots for these are filled.

I would be curious to know if FOX:

• is looking to expand these events to an eight team tournament or will stay with the four hosts, which can be more palatable for the host teams.
• was involved in team selection for 2015
• is interested in moving the dates of these events around.  The Las Vegas Invitational was slotted on Thanksgiving & Black Friday with the Thanksgiving games scheduled as bookends for the TCU at Texas football game.
• With that said, there is no guarantee that FOX Sports 1 will have a college football game on Thanksgiving.

* Admittedly, I didn't pay much attention to this either, but the Cincinnati at USF football game on Friday 11/20 may be waiting for CBS Sports Network to work with the organizers of the Paradise Jam event to determine which games will be available for them to air.  Last year, CBSSN carried two games at 4pm & 6:30pm with a Mountain West football game at 9:30pm.  If CBSSN is still the rights holder for the event (I am checking with the tournament organizers), the basketball event times might shift slightly to get to an 8pm ET start for the football game or the football game could be slotted to start right at 8:30pm ET.

Soapbox moment on the "one & done" conferences and their tournaments

With the winner of tonight's Yale at Harvard game clinching at least a share of the Ivy League title tonight alongside conferences championships from the Atlantic Sun, Big South, Ohio Valley, and Missouri Valley being decided this weekend, here's my question:

With the exception of the Missouri Valley, who will likely have an at-large bid provided the championship game is Wichita St. vs. Northern Iowa (maybe two at-larges if someone else wins it), why are these conferences holding a tournament to determine their champion?

Schools like Murray St., New Mexico St., Albany, and NC Central, who either finished undefeated in conference play or with one loss but at least three games ahead of the #2 seed, are now subject to getting it together for two or three more games, possibly on consecutive nights, to then clinch an NCAA bid for a conference they arguably dominated during the regular season.  Seems nuts, and the reward for slipping up is a guaranteed NIT bid and little else.

The conferences don't have much to lose.  There's a cost for transporting eight to twelve schools, their bands(?) and cheerleaders(?) to a central location or to a neutral site, which is likely being rented at the cost of the conference.  For most of these tournaments and conferences, the only time they are on ESPN or ESPN2 is the two hour window they're slotted for.   And there is a bit of upside.  That conference already has an auto bid in its pocket, that one NCAA tournament credit, whether its sending the regular season champ, the 12th place team or anyone in between.  Want to earn that second credit and an awesome amount of publicity for an upset?  Send your best team.  The one that a power conference school doesn't really want to play during the regular season.

I don't know the easiest way to go about this, but I'd like to see conferences be allowed to declare during the season that their regular season champion or conference tournament champion is going to be the recipient of the automatic bid.  ESPN, who ends up airing the conference final for most of the single bid conferences on main ESPN or ESPN2, banks on these two hours blocks for about a seven day period and they also commit resources and equipment for production of these games.  I'm sure they wouldn't be on board with this idea, but if you could decide with two weeks left in your regular season how you will decide your automatic bid, with the tournament option strictly being a campus sites option (ie. America East or Patriot League), I think we'd see a better field at the bottom of the bracket.

That, of course, probably kills some of the mystique of championship week for some of you.  Would be curious to know what you think.

Admin item for copyright

Hi.   Hope you all are doing well.  I hope to keep this brief.

My goal with the posts on this blog here are to inform and provide at times a "big picture" look at things when looking at how television networks schedule events, specifically in the narrow definition of this blog and the companion website of TV & webcast schedules of college football and men's college basketball.  I try to make sure that I cite a source when discussing a topic, for a few reasons off the top of my head:

1) To make sure you, the reader, is informed of a topic of the topic being discussed and where my information is coming from
2) To provide you a source of information that you may consider reading on a regular basis
3) To challenge me if I've read something incorrectly, made an incorrect judgement based on other information to your knowledge or if you have an alternate point of view

I'm going to ask the same of you if you elect to use material from either the blog or my website.  Never really considered the need for copyright marking and disclaimers on either site, but that is why I've changed up the layout of the blog from a template that Google changed it to over to one that provides for a copyright disclaimer at the bottom.  There will be visible copyright disclaimers at the bottom of each page on the schedules site too.  I would also ask that if you see something I tweet or from the Facebook outlet for this blog and the schedules site, please use the permalink or embed tweet / post option to copy it into a blog or website, though I really can't enforce that.

My concern is more about cut-n-paste or a very close rewording of material from the schedules site or blog.  Have seen items from the blog be used at times, sometimes word-for-word and other times with some editing, and had a couple instances of the HTML from the schedules site being straight up copied and pasted on to sites without attribution.

This should not discourage you from sharing pages from the website or blog on social media, nor should it discourage you from writing about similar topics if you have a similar blog or having TV schedules on a website.   Neither of those items are exclusive to me.   But I do believe I have ownership of the HTML markup & descriptions on the schedule pages and the words on this blog.

And if you find instances where I'm not holding myself up to any of these guidelines or standards, contact me or comment in the post and I'll try to make it right.  It is a one man show when it comes to the schedules site and the posts here (writer, editor, proofreader, etc.) and not everything comes out as clearly as I want it to be written.  I can tell you I am going to go through the schedules site and put more attribution on the contract terms of each conference since that information comes from press or news releases.  In the cases where it comes from conversations with the conferences, I'll try to note that as well.

I hope you understand and thank for your time.