NCAA Announcers

[bnwtwg]

ESPN Thursday Night, Friday Night, Saturday Night):

• Mike Couzens (play-by-play) – A versatile ESPN play-by-play voice calling the Championships for the sixth year.
• Jim Gibbons (analyst) – An NCAA Champion as both wrestler and coach (Iowa State), the current Big Ten Network lead analyst was inducted in the Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2003.
• Jordan Burroughs (analyst) – A two-time NCAA champion at Nebraska and Dan Hodge Trophy winner. Also a six-time world champion and 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist at the London Games, Burroughs won his most recent world title in 2022 and set the American record with seven gold medals at the Olympic and World Championship level.
• Quint Kessenich (reporter) – The multi-sport reporter and analyst will cover all sessions in his 18th year.

ESPNU - Thursday morning, Friday morning, Saturday morning

• Shawn Kenney (play-by-play) – ACC Network’s lead wrestling play-by-play voice.
• Tim Johnson (analyst) – “The voice” of college wrestling for more than three decades. Johnson has evaluated college wrestling for more than 35 years and has called hundreds of collegiate wrestling meets, including the last 18 NCAA Championships. A member of both the Iowa and National Wrestling Halls of Fame.
• Rock Harrison (analyst) – ACC Network’s lead analyst, former Virginia wrestler and a 10-year referee.

ESPN+ Matcast (aka Octomat for us uncultured swine)

• Shane Sparks (play-by-play) – Big Ten Network’s lead wrestling play-by-play voice.
• Anthony Robles (analyst) – The NCAA Champion from Arizona State returns to ESPN’s NCAA Wrestling coverage.

[bnwtwg]

Pumped for more JB after his work at the Olympics. Not so pumped for his pairing but it is what it is. 

Sparks was really good last year on the Matcast. His high energy is awesome for what could easily be a long three day drag for many announcers. Perfect pairing.

Bummed we don't get some combination of Rock, Robles, and JB at the same time. That would be a fantastic pairing... one day hopefully...

[CHROMEBIRD]

Looks like Robles got demoted again with Burroughs on the main broadcasts. Shane Sparks would actually do a much better job with the dreaded after match interviews than Quint. Not that he exactly would want to do it.

[bnwtwg]

4 hours ago, CHROMEBIRD said:

Looks like Robles got demoted again with Burroughs on the main broadcasts. Shane Sparks would actually do a much better job with the dreaded after match interviews than Quint. Not that he exactly would want to do it.

I don’t think you can find anyone better for the Matcast than Sparks, and I also agree that he would deliver top notch Saturday night interviews.