Palestra Will Host ESPN’s College Gameday

First non-BCS school to host in football and basketball.

Get ready for your closeup, Philly. ESPN’s “College Gameday” show will be broadcasting live from the Palestra on Saturday. Here’s the news release from Penn Athletics:

Saturday will be a busy day at The Palestra.

That morning, for the first time, ESPN’s “College Gameday Covered by State Farm” will roll its basketball crew — Rece Davis, Digger Phelps, Jay Bilas and Jalen Rose — into The Cathedral of College Basketball. The runup starts on Friday and will continue into Saturday morning when the show airs live from 10 a.m. to noon. Fans can catch “College Gameday Covered by State Farm” on ESPNU from 10-11 a.m., then on ESPN from 11-noon. Fans can also join the conversation and follow along on Twitter at @ESPNCBB and #CBBGameDay

Following the conclusion of “College Gameday,” La Salle and Temple will tip off at noon in the first of two Big 5 games at The Palestra. (Please that only fans who have tickets to the La Salle-Temple game will be allowed into The Palestra during the broadcast of “College Gameday”)

That night, of course, the Penn men’s basketball team hosts Saint Joseph’s in the latest installment of their Palestra tradition. The Quakers and the Hawks will tip off at 7 p.m.

Saturday will mark the second time Penn has hosted ESPN and “College Gameday” — the football crew of Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso were at Franklin Field in 2002 for the Penn-Harvard football game that was eventually won by the Quakers, 44-9. In fact, Penn becomes just the 27th institution to host both the football and basketball “College Gameday” crews on its campus, and the first non-BCS to do so. (The other schools that have hosted both are Arizona, Boston College, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Kansas State, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, North Carolina, N.C. State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.)