Kansas File photo

Keith Langford, senior guard, and Jason Klotz, Texas senior center, fight for the ball during last year’s contest at Texas. The Jayhawks welcome the Longhorns to Allen Fieldhouse at 8 p.m. Saturday.

If you’ve ever flipped your television to ESPN on Saturday during college football season, you’re probably familiar with College GameDay.

The live telecast features well-known ESPN announcers sitting at a table with cheerleaders, mascots and frenzied fans in the background.

It’s basically a two-day promotional event for the school of choice; a chance for fans to go on national television and show the whole country how great their school is.

This year, ESPN College GameDay added a new show to its agenda, a college basketball road show. Its second-ever college basketball road show stop: Lawrence.

The whole GameDay gang will be in town to see the No. 6 Kansas Jayhawks play host to the No. 16 Texas Longhorns.

The crew will arrive tomorrow and broadcast live shows on Friday and Saturday from the east lobby of Allen Fieldhouse in the trophy case area.

Rece Davis, analysts Jay Bilas and Digger Phelps and ESPN senior writer Andy Katz will host the shows. Dick Vitale, who will provide color commentary for the game, will join the team for Saturday’s later shows.

The crew will do four to five hours of shooting on Friday, including a live segment for ESPN News. It will also tape segments for SportsCenter, GameDay producer Barry Sacks said.

Cold Pizza, ESPN’s morning show, will also broadcast live from Allen Fieldhouse on Friday.

The doors to Allen Fieldhouse will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. for all fans to participate in the filming of Cold Pizza, producer Rosemary O’Brien said.

If you flip your TV to ESPN tomorrow or Saturday, you will probably see the well-known announcers live at your school, with your cheerleaders and your fans in the background.

Sacks said he encouraged everyone to get in on the action.

“The student body is welcome to join us for all of the shows,” Sacks said. “We encourage them to be active and show school spirit.”

Tipoff is at 8 p.m. on Saturday, but the ESPN festivities begin in the morning.

GameDay will shoot three shows from Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday.

The first will be a live, three-hour show at 10 a.m. During the morning show, the analysts will talk college basketball and pick the projected winners of all of Saturday’s games, including the winner of the Kansas vs. Texas game, Sacks said.

Kansas coach Bill Self is expected to appear live on the show, and ESPN will also do a feature story on junior walk-on forward Christian Moody.

The fans for the 10 a.m. show will be the first 40 groups of student campers.

Later in the evening, ESPN will broadcast at 7 p.m. This show will be limited to ticketed fans only, according to KU media relations.

Following the game, there will be an 11 p.m. broadcast that will appear on SportsCenter. The crew will talk post-game and select Saturday’s plays of the day.

Sacks said ESPN encouraged all fans attending the game to wear their school colors.

Think all of this excitement has gone to the players’ heads?

Nah.

“I just want to play the game, man,” senior guard Aaron Miles said. “We’re just focused on Texas.”

The Longhorns will come into Saturday’s game with a 15-4 record, including a Big 12 loss to Oklahoma last Saturday.

They will play without starting point guard P.J. Tucker.

“Texas is having some personnel problems, just like we did when Wayne went out,” Self said. “But they will be ready. This is a big game for us.”

If Kansas can hold off Texas, they will move to 6-0 in the Big 12.

Edited by Megan Claus