{"id":223622,"date":"2025-01-23T07:31:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T12:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=223622"},"modified":"2025-01-16T08:31:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T13:31:52","slug":"uconn-firsts-espn-college-gameday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/01\/uconn-firsts-espn-college-gameday\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Firsts: ESPN College GameDay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-global-padding is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-7387b849 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:20%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"999\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-1024x999.png\" alt=\"UConn Firsts\" class=\"wp-image-218299 img-responsive lazyload\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/999;width:150px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-1024x999.png 1024w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-300x293.png 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-768x749.png 768w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-1536x1499.png 1536w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-2048x1998.png 2048w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-430x420.png 430w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/uconnfirsts-682x665.png 682w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:80%\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">ESPN College GameDay, the network\u2019s weekly college basketball preview show, has originated from Gampel Pavilion five times. UConn played host to the first-ever GameDay for men\u2019s basketball twenty years ago this week on January 22, 2005, and the first-ever for women\u2019s basketball on January 16, 2010. GameDay has also made the trip to Gampel for men\u2019s games in 2012, 2014 and, most recently, in 2024. The show is televised before a raucous audience of mostly students and sets the stage for important basketball weekends. Among the hosts of GameDay that have made their way to UConn are Rece Davis, Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Dick Vitale, Doris Burke, Jay Williams, Seth Greenberg, Andraya Carter, and Christine Williamson. UConn and the Bristol-based ESPN have a long tradition dating back to a demonstration weekend of programming in November of 1978. A UConn men\u2019s basketball exhibition game and a men\u2019s soccer match were part of that early programming. UConn\u2019s first-ever NCAA championship in any sport was won by the field hockey team in 1981 and the final game was televised live on ESPN. UConn graduates have gained fame on ESPN\u2019s airwaves, including Rebecca Lobo, Dan Orlovsky, Darius Butler, and Molly Qerim.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignfull size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"98\" data-src=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-1024x98.png\" alt=\"decorative abstract grid pattern\" class=\"wp-image-218295 img-responsive lazyload\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-1024x98.png 1024w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-300x29.png 300w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-768x73.png 768w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-1536x147.png 1536w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-2048x196.png 2048w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-630x60.png 630w, https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2028\/09\/grid-1300x124.png 1300w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1024px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1024\/98;\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN\u2019s College GameDay made its basketball debut 20 years ago right here on the Storrs campus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":223621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,1712,2235,2633,2225,2227],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2113],"class_list":["post-223622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-today-homepage","category-firsts","category-uconn-storrs","category-uconn-edu-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 00:36:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/123"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223622"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223628,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223622\/revisions\/223628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/223621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223622"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=223622"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=223622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}