Bracketbuster: Eagles may play late-night game (TW)

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Bracketbuster: Eagles may play late-night game

By MIKE BROWN World Sports Writer

2/5/2007

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Options include ORU facing Utah State at 9 or 11 p.m.

Don't be surprised if Oral Roberts receives a late tipoff time for its Feb. 17 BracketBusters basketball game against Utah State -- late, meaning time-for-jammies late.

The Golden Eagles would be willing to play in the 9 p.m. or 11 p.m. time slots for a chance to be on ESPN2-26, athletic director Mike Carter said.

"We wanted to make ourselves available for that possibility, and that's the bottom line," Carter said.

ORU's preference was communicated by the Mid-Continent Conference to the O'Reilly ESPNU BracketBusters committee, which will announce times Monday for its 14 television games.

Two games will be televised Feb. 16 and 12 more the following day, with four to be shown on ESPNU-253, five on ESPN2 and three on Internet-based ESPN360.

ORU's game could start as early as noon. TV games will start almost every hour, up to the final tipoff at 11 p.m.

The 11 p.m. start will likely go to a team in the Central, Mountain or Western time zones, since it would mean a midnight tipoff on the East Coast.

ESPN2 has evening slots at 7, 9 and 11 p.m.

Mid-Con associate commissioner Ed Grom predicted ORU would 

fall in one of those slots.

But one evening slot must go to Creighton, hosting Drexel, because the Qwest Center in Omaha is booked for the Nebraska high school wrestling tournament during the day, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

ESPN360 has a 7 p.m. slot.

If the Eagles receive an afternoon start, Carter said the ORU-Chicago State women's game, slated for a 2:05 p.m. tipoff, will be moved.

According to the official Web site, the BracketBusters pool was determined in April 2006. The pool consists of 102 teams representing 16 conferences.