Seen on Screen: ESPN Follows USA Basketball En Route to FIBA World Cup; NBA TV to Carry Hall of Fame Enshrinement

by Jarrel Harris, Editorial Assistant

Leading up to the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup in Spain, ESPN networks will follow the path of the USA Basketball Men’s National Team which began with an intrasquad exhibition game August 1. The network will continue throughout the month with three additional exhibition games and a practice session at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Mark Jones and Fran Fraschilla called the first exhibition game and will call the action again on Saturday, August 16, when the USA takes on Brazil at 9 p.m. from the United Center in Chicago, also on ESPN.

ESPN2 will also televise a two-hour USA Basketball practice session from the U.S. Military Academy’s Christl Arena in West Point, N.Y. in front of approximately 900 cadets on Monday, August 18, at 2 p.m. The event includes an interactive basketball drill between the USA Basketball National team and active servicemen and women.

Each game and the practice session will be available on computers, smartphones, tablets, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Roku via WatchESPN. The exhibition slate sets the stage for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, which begins Saturday, August 30, and runs through Saturday, September 14. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3 and ESPN Deportes will combine to carry every game throughout the tournament…

…NBA TV will exclusively televise the 2014 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony from Springfield, Mass., on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET. The evening will begin with the 2014 Hall of Fame Red Carpet Show at 6:30 p.m. hosted by Matt Winer alongside David Aldridge and Rick Kamla. The network’s comprehensive Hall of Fame coverage will also include Looking Back at Alonzo Mourning, a 30-minute retrospective on Mourning’s career from the Hall of Famer inductee’s playing days at Georgetown to his playoff breakthrough with the Charlotte Hornets to his fight against kidney disease and his championship performance with the Miami Heat.

Additionally, NBA TV will televise two of the most memorable performances of 2014 Hall of Fame inductee Mitch Richmond’s illustrious career with the six-time All-Star live tweeting the back-to-back game re-airs via the @NBATV Twitter handle.  The telecasts — airing Tuesday, Aug 5, beginning at 4 p.m. — were personally selected by Richmond and will feature his 40-point, eight rebound and six assist performance as a Golden State Warrior in 1991 and his 47-point, seven assist and six rebound effort with the Sacramento Kings in 1995.

NBA TV and NBA.com will also provide live coverage of the 2014 Hall of Fame inductees’ press conference on Thursday, Aug. 7, at 2 p.m…

…ESPN will air a Major League Baseball Wild Card playoff game on Tuesday, September 30 at 8 PM ET, marking the network’s first postseason broadcast since 2006. ESPN has the rights to one Wild Card game per year under the new MLB television contract. The game will be preceded by a one-hour edition of Baseball Tonight…

…ESPN’s college football pregame show College Gameday will make its season debut from Fort Worth, TX, for August 30 Florida State/Oklahoma State. The show will also visit Fort Worth for the College Football National Championship Game in January…

…NBCSN has canceled its daily sports talk show SportsDash, according to Awful Announcing. The show, which was produced in collaboration with Yahoo! Sports, premiered last August. SportsDash is just the latest short-lived NBCSN show, joining The Crossover, The ‘Lights and NBC Sports Talk…

…ESPN’s seventh annual College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon – more than 24 hours of consecutive coverage to mark the start of the 2014-15 season over Monday, Nov. 17 and Tuesday, Nov. 18 – will feature 19 men’s and women’s college basketball games across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. The schedule includes 17 men’s games and two top-25 women’s matchups concluding with the fourth annual State Farm Champions Classic from Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The neutral-site, early-season men’s doubleheader that matches four of the winningest programs against each other begins with College GameDay Covered by State Farm from inside the arena at 6 p.m. ET, followed by preseason-ranked No. 18 Michigan State vs. No. 2 Duke at 7 p.m. and No. 10 Kansas vs. No. 1 Kentucky at 9 p.m. – all on ESPN.

The Marathon will include nine straight games tipping off every two hours beginning Monday with an ESPN2 tripleheader at 7 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., plus two games on ESPNU. ESPN’s schedule of five consecutive games starts at noon on Tuesday and concludes with the State Farm Champions Classic. ESPN2 will also televise a Tuesday primetime doubleheader at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m…

…ESPNU and SEC Network will televise the Kentucky Men’s Basketball ‘Big Blue Bahamas’ tour (August 10-17) where the NCAA Division I national runner-up will compete in six games vs. international opponents in Nassau, Bahamas. ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas will call each game along with play-by-play commentators Kevin Connors (ESPNU) and Dave Neal (SEC Network).

ESPNU will televise the first three games of Kentucky’s summer exhibition slate on Sunday, Aug. 10 (vs. Puerto Rico), Monday, Aug. 11 (vs. Champagne Chalons-Reim Basket), and Tuesday, Aug. 12 (vs. Puerto Rico).  SEC Network will televise the final three games on Friday, Aug. 15 (vs. Dominican Republic), Saturday, Aug. 16 (vs. Champagne Chalons-Reim Basket) and Sunday, Aug. 17 (vs. Dominican Republic).  All games are at 1 p.m. ET.

SEC Network will launch on Thursday, August 14.