Announcers picked for Final Four 'teamcasts'

NEW YORK (AP) -- Former college basketball stars Donny Marshall of UConn and Rex Chapman of Kentucky will be among the commentators for the team-specific broadcasts of Saturday's Final Four games.

Turner Sports and CBS are experimenting with airing two additional telecasts of both NCAA semifinals. Along with the main coverage on TBS, there will be separate versions on TNT and truTV with different announcing crews connected to each school.

For the early game, the Florida broadcast will be on TNT and UConn's on truTV. Kentucky will be on TNT and Wisconsin on truTV for the second semifinal.

The full teams announced Tuesday:

—For Florida, play-by-play will be handled by David Steele, who has previously hosted Gators basketball and football TV and radio coverage and is the current voice of the Orlando Magic. He will be joined by Mark Wise, a longtime analyst for the Gator Basketball Network, and reporter James Bates, a former Florida football player.

—For UConn, the play-by-play announcer will be Connecticut native Eric Frede, a studio host for regional network Comcast SportsNet New England who also calls Huskies women's games for New York cable station SNY. He will work with two former UConn stars: Marshall, a commentator for Brooklyn Nets games on YES Network, and reporter Swin Cash, who won two national titles with the women's team.

—For Kentucky, longtime Lexington sports anchor Rob Bromley will do play-by-play. He has worked Wildcats games for the UKTV Network since 1980. The analyst will be Chapman, and the reporter will be Bromley's WKYT colleague, Dave Baker.

—For Wisconsin, Big Ten Network announcer Wayne Larrivee will be the play-by-play voice. The analyst will be former Badgers guard Mike Kelley, who played in the 2000 Final Four.

Each "teamcast" will be a unique production with its own TV truck, producer and director. Four additional cameras will offer team-centric angles, and each will also have its own replays, graphics (in team colors) and halftime show.

Network executives ideally would have wanted to hire local radio announcers for the broadcasts, but they knew that was unlikely because of the commentators' responsibilities to call the Final Four games for their radio employers.

Jim Nantz, Greg Anthony and Steve Kerr will handle the main coverage on TBS, which is airing the national semifinals on cable for the first time.

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Turner Sports is part of Time Warner Inc.; CBS is a division of CBS Corp.