Raveling Figures In Mix As Cbs Shuffles Teams

Rick Gentile couldn’t have gotten the names more mixed up if he’d put them on slips of paper and thrown them into the wind.

When the NCAA men’s basketball tournament starts March 16, not a single one of CBS’ eight announcing teams will be the same as last year.

“Once in a while, I’ve got to do something to keep myself interested,” said Gentile, who is CBS Sports’ senior vice president of production as well as its mix-master.

Seriously, he said, “it was not deliberate.”

The reason for the March mad scramble was the departure of James Brown, who went to Fox, and Greg Gumbel, now at NBC.

“When you lose those two play-by-play guys, and then Quinn Buckner comes back, it just made sense to revisit everything,” Gentile said. “I did deliberately say the old rules don’t apply this year, but as for the teams all being different, that’s just the way it came out.”

This year’s announcing lineup includes one pair entirely new to CBS, Mike Emrick and George Raveling, the former Southern Cal and Washington State coach.

The other teams are Dick Stockton-Billy Packer, Sean McDonough-Bill Raftery, Verne Lundquist-Quinn Buckner, Tim RyanAl McGuire, Ted Robinson-Derrek Dickey, Dave Sims-Dan Bonner and Mike GormanAnne Meyers. In the second week, Jim Nantz will come out of the studio and do play-byplay with Packer.

“When you lose key guys like we did, you

have to go back and rethink,” Gentile said. “I’m like a coach making his lineup. You try to put together teams with the best chemistry, but you don’t really know. It’s sort of awkward. People ask how this one works with that one. I don’t know. They haven’t done it yet. As if there isn’t enough going on, I have to start listening to the talent now, too.

“But that’s what makes this fun. It’s such a huge undertaking.”

For the fifth straight year, CBS will televise all 63 tournament games, concluding with the national championship April 3 in Seattle.

Out takes

Emrick and Raveling, did a practice game at East Lansing, Mich., on Sunday when Indiana was at Michigan State.

“It was not my maiden voyage,” said Raveling, who retired from coaching last year. “I’ve done some games for ESPN. What was valuable was it gave Mike and myself an opportunity to work together before we go into the tournament, since we hadn’t worked together before.”

Emrick also does hockey for Fox.

Raveling said he still feels like a coach doing some announcing, but if he’s good enough, he’d one day like to become an announcer who used to be a coach.

“I certainly hope that evolution will take place with me. I value this experience and take it very seriously,” he said. “I probably spend three days a week, 5 hours each day preparing for games.”

If Chi Chi Rodriguez could play just two more courses before he dies, they would be Winged Foot in New York and the TPC Stadium course at La Quinta, Calif.

“It’s a masterpiece,” Rodriguez said of La

Quinta. “It’s going to look beautiful on television. It will be tough but fair… . You’re going to see that all of the players will be hitting every club in their bag.”The Legends tournament, which sparked creation of the modern Seniors Tour, will be held April 21-23 with the final two days on ABC. It was held in Austin, Texas its first 17 years.”The golf course in Austin was a real good layout, but it just didn’t have much space for the galleries,” Rodriguez said.