The meteoric rise of Kevin Bukhardt at Fox continues. The MLB studio host and NFL on Fox commentator will be working both in the studio and on play-by-play during Fox’s college basketball coverage this year.
Familiar names continue to dot Fox’s coverage. The Gus Johnson/Bill Raftery duo returns, while Tim Brando makes his Fox college hoops debut. Other play by play announcers that worked for Fox last year return for the 2014-15 season, including Justin Kutcher, Aaron Goldsmith, Dick Stockton, Kevin Kugler, Eric Collins, Cory Provus, and Brian Anderson.
Former Stanford star Casey Jacobsen joins the pool of analysts, that includes a mammoth amount of returns, including Jim Jackson, Donny Marshall, Tarik Turner, Jim Sparnarkel, Stephen Bardo, Ron Thompson, Bob Wenzel, Vin Parise, and Sean Elliott.
Burkhardt will share studio hosting duties with the ever-present Rob Stone, along with Don Bell and Greg Wolf. Austin Croshere, the aforementioned Donny Marshall, and Kevin O’Neill all return in the studio, while former UCLA and Pitt coach Ben Howland joins the studio. The studio insiders for Fox are Stewart Mandel and Reid Forgrave.
The official beginning of the college basketball season on Fox started with a doubleheader on Fox Sports 2 last night, but the schedule of hoops on Fox Sports 1 starts tomorrow, with Chicago State and Creighton, while Monday and Tuesday will feature a pair of doubleheaders.
The real takeaway from all of this coverage is Kevin Burkhardt truly becoming a year-round presence at Fox. With him covering MLB, the NFL, and now college basketball, there’s no offseason for him with Fox. I knew they had big plans for him, but not to this degree.
