NCAA Basketball (series)

Genre(s)Sports (basketball)
Developer(s)Electronic Arts, EA Canada
Publisher(s)EA Sports
Platform(s)PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
First releaseNCAA March Madness 98
February 25, 1998
Latest releaseNCAA Basketball 10
November 17, 2009

NCAA Basketball (formerly NCAA March Madness) is a series of college basketball video games that was published by EA Sports from 1998 until 2009. After EA Sports' rival publisher 2K Sports cancelled its own college basketball game, College Hoops, in 2008, EA changed the name of the series from NCAA March Madness to NCAA College Basketball. The series was discontinued on February 10, 2010.[1]

It was released on PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Like other games based on NCAA sports, it could not feature the players' names (as that is against NCAA policy/rules), so only the players' numbers were used in the rosters. Users were able to edit the rosters, putting in the correct names for each team if they wished to do so. Many player last names were built into the in-game commentary, like in the NBA Live series.

Verne Lundquist, Brad Nessler, and Gus Johnson lent their voices for play-by-play in the games at various times. Lundquist was the original announcer, with Nessler taking over in the mid-2000s and Johnson joining him for the most recent game in the series. Bill Raftery and Dick Vitale were analysts. Raftery originally worked with Lundquist on their games and returned to work alongside Johnson for CBS-branded games in NCAA Basketball 10, while Vitale and Nessler joined the series at the same time.

  1. ^ "NCAA Basketball Series Officially Canceled". Retrieved 10 February 2010.

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