TNT's Steve Kerr To Join Nantz, Kellogg On CBS' NCAA Final Four Coverage

CBS and Turner today announced Steve Kerr will join Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg at the broadcast table this year for the net's coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament Final Four and national championship game. The announcement comes as CBS and Turner Sports have combined their talent rosters for coverage of the tournament in the first year of their joint broadcast agreement. Kerr calls games as part of TNT's NBA package. CBS also announced two studios, based in N.Y. and Atlanta, will be used to cover the tourney. Studio coverage will be anchored by CBS' Greg Gumbel and TNT's Ernie Johnson, who will share hosting duties during each day. TNT NBA analysts Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith and CBS analyst Greg Anthony will provide analysis throughout the tournament alongside Gumbel or Johnson from N.Y. TNT's Reggie Miller and CBS' Seth Davis will join the N.Y. studio rotation for the second week of the tournament. NBA TV host Matt Winer will host the studio coverage from Turner's Atlanta studio with analysts Davis and Steve Smith (THE DAILY).

NCAA TOURNAMENT BROADCAST TEAMS
PLAY-BY-PLAY	ANALYST
Jim Nantz	Clark Kellogg*
Marv Albert	Steve Kerr*
Verne Lundquist	Bill Raftery*
Gus Johnson	Len Elmore*
Kevin Harlan	Reggie Miller/Dan Bonner
Ian Eagle	Jim Spanarkel
Tim Brando	Mike Gminski
Spero Dedes	Bob Wenzel
NOTE: * = Regional semifinal and final announce teams

LEARNING CURVE: SI.com's Richard Deitsch writes one of the "major questions of the joint broadcast will be how adept and prepared TNT's announcers are with the actors and nomenclature of college basketball." It could get "tricky given most of these announcers are dedicated to NBA coverage and have little experience calling NCAA action." The inclusion of Barkley is "one of the wildcards of the coverage," as he has "consistently said that college athletes should be compensated and that the current athletic system is unfair for student-athletes" (SI.com, 1/20).