This Friday, ESPN will carry one of the first games of the college basketball season. It will pit Michigan State and UConn live from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and will be part of ESPN’s Salute to Veterans this week.
Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas will call the game live at 5:30 p.m. They’ll be joined by Andy Katz who will be the courtside reporter.
ESPN is also sending anchors Hannah Storm and Kevin Neghandi to Germany to anchor a special edition of SportsCenter live from Ramstein on Thursday night and Friday morning.
John Anderson and analyst Jay Williams will co-host a half-hour pregame live from Germany.
Here are the details from ESPN.
Connecticut & Michigan State to Meet in Armed Forces Classic at Ramstein Air Base in Germany
First Regular-Season Men’s College Game Overseas
Connecticut and No. 14 Michigan State will take part in the first regular-season men’s college basketball game held overseas – in the Armed Forces Classic at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, on Friday, Nov. 9. The inaugural location – in a C-5 transport airplane hangar on the base – will be televised on ESPN with coverage starting at 5:30 p.m. ET. The game is the centerpiece of ESPN’s fourth annual America’s Heroes: A Salute to Our Veterans, a five-day initiative that honors veterans and troops in programming across the network’s U.S. media platforms from Wednesday, Nov. 7 through Sunday, Nov. 11.
Live studio coverage from Germany begins on ESPNU at 5 p.m. and continues with a full pregame show at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN. The game will tipoff on ESPN at 6 p.m.
Studio
- Hannah Storm and Kevin Negandhi will anchor SportsCenter from Hangar 3, telecasting before a live audience of servicemen and women Thursday night (6 p.m.; ESPN) and Friday (9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; ESPN, ESPNEWS).
- Host Matt Schick and analyst Bruce Pearl will be live from ESPNU’s Charlotte, N.C. studios at 5 p.m.
- ESPN’s 30-minute pregame show will come live from Hangar 5 with anchor John Anderson and college basketball analyst Jay Williams.
- Postgame coverage will be a combination of Anderson and Williams from Germany and a transition to the crew at the Barclays Center Classic in Brooklyn, N.Y., featuring Maryland vs. defending national Champion No. 3 Kentucky.
Game
- Play-by-play veteran Dan Shulman will have the call of the game with analyst Jay Bilas and on-court reporter Andy Katz.
- Vignettes on the three UConn players that hail from Germany – Leon Tolksdorf (Berlin), Niels Giffey (Berlin) and Enosch Wolf (Goettingen) and select Michigan State players – will be be weaved throughout the coverage.
- Head coaches Kevin Ollie (UConn) and Tom Izzo (MSU) will be mic’ed during practice and will also visit the SportsCenter set on Friday.
- Footage of the team’s practicing, visiting the Wounded Warrior Hospital, taking flight in a C-130, doing a tour of the base and participating in a basketball clinic with children of the servicemen and women.
Additional Content and Vignettes
- The importance of the control tower at the U.S. Air Forces headquarters in Europe.
- The injured spend 24-48 hours in the CASF (Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility) as they transition from combat back to the United States.
- Inside a C130, a military transport plane during a training mission.
- Sights and sounds from around Ramstein Air Base, including Retreat for the lowering of the flag.
- An interview with Brigadier General C.K. Hyde about the Air Base and its role as host to the game.
The Armed Forces Classic is a series of Division I college men’s basketball games to be played on military bases around the world, owned and operated by ESPN Regional Television (ERT), a subsidiary of ESPN. Future teams and sites will be announced at a later date.
That’s all for this post.
