ESPNU To Feature Thursday Night SEC Baseball Game of the Week
Friday, November 26, 2010 | Baseball
ESPNU's inaugural Thursday Night SEC Baseball Game of the Week will begin Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. and will run seven-straight weeks through May 19. A Thursday night national game of the week is a first for the college sport, and features all eight conference teams that earned NCAA postseason bids in 2010.
“ESPNU is thrilled to feature a seven-week SEC Thursday night baseball series,” said Rosalyn Durant, Vice President, ESPNU. “Showcasing the vast talent of SEC baseball is great for the sport, fans, league and ESPNU. We appreciate the partnership with the SEC in creating this consistent Thursday night national package.”
SEC baseball is coming off a successful season that saw South Carolina win the 2010 National Championship Series, Florida advanced to the College World Series and eight SEC teams overall earned an NCAA postseason bid. It marked the sixth time since 2000 and the third-straight year an SEC team played for the national title.
ESPNU Thursday Night SEC Baseball Game of the Week schedule highlights include:
· 2010 national champion South Carolina, SEC Tournament champion LSU and SEC regular-season champion Florida
· Top 25 teams that advanced to the 2010 NCAA Championship – Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt
“The Thursday night package of SEC games on ESPNU is a great opportunity for us to showcase the outstanding baseball that is played in our conference,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. “The ESPNU package will be able to draw attention to the outstanding game-day atmosphere we have at our baseball stadiums as well as the rich tradition and history of SEC baseball.”
Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan's UF squad captured the 2010 SEC title, its 11th league crown in school history, with a program-best 22-8 league mark and claimed nine of the 10 league series. In addition, the Gators won the SEC Eastern Division title for the second-straight year, their first time earning back-to-back divisional flags since the squad collected three in a row from 1996-98. Florida then advanced to the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, Neb., for the first time in five years after sweeping the Regional and Super Regional rounds on its own turf and finished with an overall mark of 47-17.
*SEC baseball series are played with single games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For series involved in this package, the first game will be played on Thursday with games on Friday and Saturday. This will involve just one series per week for the final seven weeks of the conference baseball season. During the final weekend of the season, all games are Thursday through Saturday.
*Additional SEC baseball games will be aired on the ESPN family of networks as well as other networks and will be announced at a later date. No other games will be moved to Thursday other than the games listed below.
*ESPNU is now available in 73 million homes.
ESPNU SEC Thursday Night Baseball Schedule
(schedule subject to change and games start at 7:30 p.m. ET)
| April 7 | South Carolina at Tennessee |
| April 14 | Tennessee at Alabama |
| April 21 | Ole Miss at Auburn |
| April 28 | Kentucky at LSU |
| May 5 | FLORIDA at Arkansas |
| May 12 | Miss. State at Ole Miss |
| May 19 | Vanderbilt at Georgia |
