TNT Sports is bringing back one of its most prominent NBA analysts and adding one of college basketball’s best-known coaches.
Former TNT NBA lead analyst Chris Webber is returning to the company as a college basketball studio analyst, it was announced Thursday. Webber worked for TNT from 2008-21, primarily serving as an NBA game and studio analyst, but also working NCAA men’s basketball tournament games from 2015-19.
In his new role, Webber will contribute to TNT Sports coverage of the Thanksgiving week “Players Era” event and other “additional key moments” during the season. It is unclear whether that would include the NCAA Tournament.
Beyond Webber, TNT Sports announced that it is hiring former Auburn coach Bruce Pearl as a studio analyst. Pearl — who worked for ESPN from 2012 until he left for the Auburn job in 2014 — is also joining CBS Sports as a game and studio analyst and will work in-studio on CBS/TNT Sports coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
TNT Sports will fill out its regular season studio lineup with former ESPN NBA analysts Jamal Mashburn and Jalen Rose, the latter of whom is a regular TNT Sports contributor. Adam Lefkoe was previously announced as host.
Former Michigan teammmates Webber and Rose — who would seem to have patched up their years-long rift — have never worked on the same studio show before.
In a statement, TNT Sports chief content officer Craig Barry touted the new studio team as the latest example of a “certain DNA that is unique to TNT Sports” and said the company takes “great pride in assembling the right blend of personalities capable of extending that culture.”
TNT Sports — formerly known as Turner Sports — is entering its first fall without NBA rights since 1988, the first year of the TNT network. To compensate, the company has sharply increased its college basketball inventory, which this season consists of 72 BIG EAST men’s and women’s games and a slate of Big 12 men’s games that were acquired when the company agreed to license its “Inside the NBA” studio show to ESPN.
It was previously announced that Candace Parker will serve as a game analyst on the TNT college basketball slate.