Last week, Jay Williams announced that he would be remaining with ESPN, despite the cancelation of his radio show earlier this year. In last week’s announcement, Williams said that he would be “building” his own platform at the network.
ESPN canceled Keyshawn, JayWill and Max earlier this year as part of a downsizing effort that hit ESPN Radio especially hard. Since then, both Keyshawn Johnson and Max Kellerman have left the network. Williams had not announced his future, but many had figured he might be gone as well, especially after some of his own comments on his future (with his contract up this summer) and on the end of that show.
While no details have been released by the Worldwide Leader about his new role, the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand reported on Monday that Williams will be a main panelist on the hoops version of College GameDay, as well as a game analyst for college basketball broadcasts. Williams, who played at Duke before his NBA career, originally joined College GameDay at the start of the 2014-15 season as an analyst. But he left to replace Paul Pierce on NBA Countdown back in 2019.
Williams will notably be replacing long-time college basketball analyst LaPhonso Ellis on the set of GameDay. Ellis, who was announced as Williams’ replacement when he had left for NBA Countdown, had been a main fixture on the set of College GameDay since then. Ellis was among those laid off back in June. He had been a college basketball analyst for ESPN since 2009.
Beyond his radio work, Williams appeared on First Take and NBA broadcasts for ESPN in the past. But his ascension at that network was originally because of college basketball. So now, ESPN has Williams going back to his old roots, where he’ll rejoin Rece Davis, Seth Greenberg and Jay Bilas on College GameDay.
According to Marchand, Williams will also be on the call for some college basketball games this upcoming season as well.
After originally appearing to be among the likely castoffs, Williams has reemerged in one of his previous roles at the company.
