Courtesy USA Today

(September 16, 2009) Details can sometimes symbolize sweeping trends. Like this one: ESPN formally announces today that on Nov. 17, its live men's NCAA basketball will include a Monmouth-St. Peter's game in New Jersey at 6 a.m. ET, followed by Drexel at Niagara at 8 a.m. ET.

Finally: College hoops duels at dawn!

ESPN, which has aired about 8,200 college hoops games, says it's never had any in those time slots. But given how college teams have grown willing to play in new time slots for the TV exposure — it's not just for money, since TV money is paid to conferences rather then schools themselves — maybe this should have been seen as inevitable.

The unprecedented start times came from ESPN looking to fill in the blanks in its 24-hour NCAA basketball opening day marathon, which last year debuted with no game action from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET. This year's 12 games in 24 hours starts with Cal State-Fullerton vs. UCLA at midnight ET — last year's Massachusetts-Memphis game in that time slot produced ESPN's highest non-conference game rating — and then has a West Coast game (San Diego State at Saint Mary's) and Northern Colorado at Hawaii before Monmouth-St. Peter's. Some games, such as Temple-Georgetown at 4 p.m. ET, were created specifically to be part of the marathon.

Says ESPN programmer Nick Dawson on getting schools to play at offbeat times: "There were definitely schools who weren't interested. But to my surprise, lots of people were interested."

Maybe colleges' quest for TV exposure might lead to teams playing nude to get on-air. But, appropriately, only in really late-night TV time slots.

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