Two of the most prominent sports analysts will be pairing together on two upcoming college basketball broadcasts.
“Inside the NBA” analyst Charles Barkley and ESPN college basketball voice Dick Vitale will pair on two college basketball broadcasts this season, the first being Indiana-Kentucky on ESPN a week from Saturday and the second being an NCAA men’s basketball tournament “First Four” game on truTV in March, it was announced Monday.
Barkley has not served as a game analyst in any capacity since a Christmas 2017 Timberwolves-Lakers game on TNT, and Vitale has never called an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game on U.S. television. Even when ESPN aired the tournament — last doing so in 1990 — Vitale was part of the studio team rather than assigned to games.
The initiative will mark Barkley’s first ESPN-produced assignment since the network began licensing TNT’s “Inside the NBA” as its primary NBA studio show. Barkley’s colleague Kenny Smith has already taken on an ESPN-specific role as an occasional game analyst and contributor to the network’s “First Take” debate show.
It will also mark his first NCAA Tournament broadcast outside of the studio. While best known for his NBA work, Barkley will have covered the tournament for 15 years as of next March.
For Vitale, the assignments are easily his highest-profile since returning to broadcasting earlier this year. The longtime ESPN analyst, who has been with the company since its first year of existence in 1979, missed the better part of four years battling multiple forms of cancer.
Though he has never called an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game on U.S. television, Vitale began calling ESPN’s international feed coverage of Men’s Final Four in 2013 — most recently doing so in 2023.
Vitale and Barkley have shared a booth on occasion when the latter might drop in as a guest analyst. In addition, they paired together on a Conan O’Brien sketch more than a decade ago, serving as the analysts for a dunk contest featuring fake mascots.
