Local basketball game to be rebroadcast Thursday night

February 9, 2011

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Based on the extraordinary response from the community, the University of Florida’s WLUF-TV (Cox Cable Channel 6 in Gainesville) will rebroadcast the recent basketball game between Eastside High School and Gainesville High School at 8 p.m. Thursday.

The game featured an extraordinary half-court shot by Eastside’s Raheem Watkins to win it by one point for the Rams as the buzzer sounded for the second overtime period. It has been the focus of thousands of views on Facebook and even a No. 1 ranking on ESPN Sportscenter’s “Top 10″ plays over the weekend.

The game, recorded on Feb. 4 at Santa Fe College, was broadcast live on WRUF Sportsradio 850 and tape delayed on WLUF-TV.

It was a first-time collaborative effort between the production staff of UF College of Journalism and Communications’ WUFT-TV/WLUF-TV and telecommunications students from the college.

WRUF sports host Joe Girvan did the play-by-play commentary and UF student Mike Gillespie served as the color commentator.

More than a dozen telecommunication students worked in various production capacities including camera work, graphics and audio production for both radio and TV.

WUFT/WLUF Production Director Brad Noblitt and Producer/Director Reed Erickson supervised the game coverage and recording.

“When we envisioned giving our students the experience of broadcasting a live sporting event we had no idea it would be something of this magnitude,” said Randy Wright, executive director of the Division of Multimedia Properties in the college. “The students had a great time producing this high quality programming and I’m pretty sure they all have now caught ‘the bug,’ that is realizing how much fun this business can be. The good news for them is we’re going to be doing much more of this, especially through our new partnership with UAA’s Gatorvision, the media arm of the University Athletic Association.”