Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 11, 1995 TAG: 9511130010
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Is that some coach scraping his fingernails across a chalkboard or Dick Vitale screeching in the distance? Can it be? Some folks still are trying to figure out who's in the Atlantic 10 and Conference USA, never mind who's in which Big East division, and it's time to hoop it up.
The schedule is so large this season, even the Big South has a TV package. The Division I women's tournament has found its own network in Bristol, Conn., and ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to air 25 of the 63 games in that field. That's up from seven in previous years.
It's a long road to the Final Fours at the Meadowlands (men) and Charlotte Coliseum (women), however. The CBS schedule has more than doubled, and some of that network's dates will be regionalized in cut-in fashion that fans have seen during CBS' exclusive coverage of the NCAA Tournament.
The ESPN regular-season men's schedule includes 200 games and at least 111 teams, including 30 of the final 32 from last year's NCAA field. Eighteen conference title games will air in the return of ``Championship Week.'' The inaugural Jimmy V Classic, a Meadowlands doubleheader on Dec.22 to benefit the V Foundation for cancer research, has Kansas-Temple and Massachusetts-Georgia Tech.
There's Big Monday and Super Tuesday. There's the Great Eight and a superb field in the Maui Invitational. And if this isn't enough stuffing, ESPN2 has another 124 men's games, including 67 of the 96 teams that played in the NCAA or NIT last season.
While ESPN and ESPN2 begin with first-round Preseason NIT games Wednesday - including a tripleheader on the original network - Home Team Sports has 162 games, most of those live telecasts, for its six-state regional audience. HTS will be the area outlet for Virginia Tech's new conference location, the Atlantic 10.
The ACC schedule returns to WDBJ (Channel 7), which has 25 regular-season games from the league, seven of the eight ACC Tournament games, plus another 24 CBS Sports telecasts. Maybe the most intriguing game on WDBJ will be the station's own production - the Nov.28 Washington and Lee-VMI game at Cameron Hall, the neighboring schools' first regular-season date in history and first hoop matchup since the Southern Conference tournament 54 years ago.
'HOOS-HOKIES: ABC Sports will deliver the Virginia Tech-Virginia football game to 19.5 percent of the country next Saturday at noon, with the much larger percentage receiving Michigan-Penn State. While most ACC markets will get the game at Scott Stadium, most Big East locations will see the Big Ten game.
The Tech-UVa game goes to all of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama and parts of Mississippi and Florida. WSET (Channel 13) will air the game locally, followed at 3:30 p.m. by an ABC regional, Northwestern-Purdue.
TUNING IN: The Nielsen rating for the ESPN telecast of Virginia's Nov.2 football victory over Florida State was more than double the average for the Thursday's night CFA schedule and the second-highest in the history of that prime-time cable series.
The FSU-UVa game did a 6.1 rating, or nearly 4.1 million cable homes, compared to the 2.9 rating for the Thursday night schedule entering the game. The only CFA Thursday game with a higher rating was Houston-Miami, with a 6.5 in September 1991.
NEW HIVE: The Charlotte Hornets' TV presence in the local market has shrunk since their first season, until now. WDRG (Channel 24), a Danville station in its first year of operation, is airing 25 Hornets' games. The station is available on many area cable systems, too. Most of WDRG's NBA telecasts are on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights.
WDRG general manager Mel Eleazer said the station plans to carry several CIAA basketball telecasts beginning in January, and next baseball season will air a portion of the Baltimore Orioles' network schedule (other games than those on cable's HTS).
And with WSET having to pre-empt next Saturday's ACC football telecast for the ABC coverage of the Tech-UVa game, WDRG is picking up the Maryland-Florida State game at noon on the ACC package from Jefferson Pilot Sports.
STAGG PARTIES: The road to the third Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl at Salem Stadium begins Sunday, when the NCAA Division III Football Committee selects the 16-team tournament field leading to the Dec.9 title game. Cable systems in Roanoke and Salem will make the live pairings announcement available to viewers at 11:45 a.m. Sunday, on Channel 9 on Roanoke's Cox cable and Channel 13 on Salem's Booth cable.
The Stagg Bowl will have a new team in the booth, too, as the game moves from ESPN to a 1 p.m. live telecast on ESPN2. Dewayne Staats, who worked Wednesday night baseball telecasts on ESPN, will work play-by-play, with former East Carolina and Georgia Tech coach Bill Lewis doing the analysis. They've worked Big Ten games on ESPN2 this season.
AROUND THE DIAL: WSLS will suspend its weekly toll-free voting process on NFL selections for Nov.19 games. The NBC regionals for a single-game day include Seattle-Washington, which Channel 10 will air at 1 p.m. ... ESPN2 will have live, three-hour coverage of Sunday's New York Marathon at 10:30 a.m. ESPN has a 90-minute highlight show on the marathon Monday night at 9. ... For the first time in its 18-year history, cable's USA Network will telecast all four rounds of a pro golf tournament, the World Championship of Golf from Jamaica on Dec.14-17. The $2.7 million event will be aired live with 12 hours of coverage over four days. ... When the NFL season began, Sunday's Carolina-St.Louis game was the Fox Network opener on the WJPR/WFXR (Channels 21/27) schedule. Now, even though the Panthers have won four in a row and are helping the Rams open the new TransWorld Dome, the local Fox affiliate is airing Chicago-Green Bay before the San Francisco-Dallas nightcap. ... ESPN, originally scheduled for one CFA game next Saturday, will double that, with Alabama-Auburn at 5:30 p.m., followed by Notre Dame-Air Force. ... CBS Sports will air the first Bowl Alliance selections for the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar live Dec. 3 at 5:30 p.m. (WDBJ Channel 7).
by CNB