After Greg Anthony was indefinitely suspended last month for his arrest in a prostitution sting, CBS and Turner Sports had to find a replacement not just for him, but also Steve Kerr who left after last season to become a coach in the NBA. With the networks needing two men to replace for the NCAA Final Four, CBS and Turner came up with a very good solution. It brought in Bill Raftery from the CBS side, a well-deserved promotion for one of the better college basketball analysts, and from the Turner side, Grant Hill.
They’ll team with Jim Nantz for the Final Four on TBS on April 4 and National Championship Game on CBS on April 6.
Nantz and Raftery will become a new team and they’ll work exclusively during the NCAA Tournament leading up to the Final Four.
Hill will make his debut as a game analyst later in the season. Nantz, Raftery, Hill and reporter Tracy Wolfson will work their first assignment together during the Big Ten Tournament semifinals and finals in March.
Of course, it means the break-up of Uncle Verne Lundquist and Raft, a team that had been together since the 2000 NCAA Tournament. It also marks the end of Raft calling the NCAA Final Four for Westwood One Radio, something he’s done dating back to the 1990’s.
CBS and Turner will announce the NCAA Tournament announcing teams at a later date.
Here’s the announcement.
TURNER SPORTS AND CBS SPORTS NAME BILL RAFTERY AND GRANT HILL GAME ANALYSTS FOR 2015 NCAA® FINAL FOUR AND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPHILL AND RAFTERY TEAM WITH JIM NANTZ FOR 2015 NCAA TOURNAMENT
Turner Sports and CBS Sports today announced that Bill Raftery and Grant Hill will call the NCAA Final Four and National Championship this year.
Hill and Raftery will join the team of Jim Nantz and reporter Tracy Wolfson to call games together throughout the 2015 NCAA Tournament, culminating with the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four and National Championship from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. This year’s NCAA Tournament marks the first time Raftery and Hill will call the Final Four and National Championship on television.
The full NCAA Tournament commentator line-up will be announced at a later date.
Raftery is entering his 33rd year calling the NCAA Tournament. Hill will debut this year as a game analyst after joining the collective NCAA Tournament coverage last year as a studio analyst.
Nantz, Raftery, Hill and Wolfson will team for the first time to call the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament semi-finals on Saturday, March 14 and championship game on Sunday, March 15 on CBS.
For the fifth consecutive year, CBS Sports and Turner Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games from the 2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship across four national television networks – TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV. The Final Four on Saturday, April 4 will be televised on TBS and the National Championship on Monday, April 6 will air on CBS.
Hill, a two-time NCAA basketball champion at Duke University and member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, joined Turner Sports in 2013 following a 19-year NBA career. He currently serves as a game and studio analyst for Turner Sports, as well as host of NBA TV’s weekly NBA Inside Stuff show.
Raftery joined CBS Sports in 1983. He has been a key member of the Network’s college basketball team serving as a regular-season and NCAA Tournament game analyst for 33 years. Raftery has been a game analyst for radio coverage of the NCAA Final Four for the last 23 years. He also was elected as a 2015 inductee to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame.
That is all.
