Thursday Night Showcase


Thursday Night Showcase appears every Thursday with the biggest games in college basketball in primetime during the regular season on ESPN and ESPN2. The games include, on ESPN, an ACC battle at 7pm ET with Mike Patrick doing play- by- play and Len Elmore as color commentator. ESPN's 9pm ET game features the Big Ten with Dave O'Brien and Stephen Bardo on the call. On ESPN2, a Big East game, shown at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m., is called by Dave Pasch and Doris Burke. In the other slot, ESPN2 offers a game from the West Coast Conference with Dave Flemming and either Sean Farnham or Miles Simon calling that game. The studio host is Karl Ravech along with analysis from Dan Dakich. They deliver the half time report, post game report and live in-game updates. The gang also appears on College GameNight later that night.
The program is part of ESPN's business strategy of ensuring that every day of the week has sports events with a large audience. Other programs that are part of this strategy are Big Monday, Super Tuesday and Wednesday Night Hoops.
Some of these games and all of the in-studio reports are produced in high definition for ESPNHD and ESPN2HD. Thursday Night Showcase is similar to Big Monday, Super Tuesday and Wednesday Night Hoops.