Jalen Rose joining CBS/Turner March Madness coverage

Less than two years after being laid off from his lead NBA studio role on ESPN, Jalen Rose is back on marquee basketball coverage with CBS and TNT Sports.

Rose will serve as a game and studio analyst for CBS and TNT Sports coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, it was announced Tuesday, working first and second round games alongside play-by-play voice Lisa Byington and analyst Robbie Hummel. Rose will also bookend the tournament as a studio analyst on the First Four and Final Four.

The role is by far the highest-profile position for Rose since his departure from ESPN in 2023. He has also served as a college basketball analyst for NBC Sports and made a handful of cameos on TNT’s NBA studio coverage, including for the NBA All-Star Game. During his ESPN tenure, Rose served as a studio analyst on the NBA Finals every year from 2012 through 2023.

The addition of Rose means that Steve Smith, who worked with Byington and Hummel last season, will shift to the broadcast team of Tom McCarthy and Debbie Antonelli. That duo worked with Avery Johnson last season, who is not on the roster this year.

Other changes include Lauren Shehadi and Andy Katz swapping spots on the depth chart. Shehadi will move up to the “C” team of Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner and Stan Van Gundy, which will work through the regional finals, while Katz will move to the Byington-Hummel-Rose trio.

The rest of the game roster remains the same as a year ago, with Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson again forming the lead team.

On the studio side, the TNT NBA trio of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith will again join Clark Kellogg in New York. Johnson will again split time with CBS Sports’ Adam Zucker in the New York studio. This year marks the first NCAA men’s basketball tournament since the passing in December of longtime CBS host Greg Gumbel.

The Atlanta-based studio team will again consist of Adam Lefkoe, Jay Wright, Candace Parker and Seth Davis.