College Basketball | Billy Packer out as NCAA analyst

NEW YORK — Billy Packer didn't sound like a man who found out his 34-year run as part of the Final Four broadcast had ended.

On Monday, CBS announced that Clark Kellogg would replace Packer after 27 years as the network's lead college basketball analyst. Including his earlier years at NBC, Packer had done every Final Four since 1975, an unparalleled run for a national sports championship.

"These are really good circumstances," Packer told The Associated Press by phone. "This decision was made with myself and CBS over a year ago. Their timing to announce it is their business. I have nothing to do with that. I was working on a series of one-year contracts for several years. ... I did say there would be no mention during the season so as not to detract from the games and the guys involved."

The circumstances of his departure were as unconventional as his reaction.

Although he said he remains enthusiastic and engaged on the job, he did not anticipate filling it through the end of CBS' deal with the NCAA in 2014.

Thus there was an understanding that when CBS was ready to move on, Packer would be, too. About a year ago, the network told him it wanted to give studio analyst Clark Kellogg, 47, a shot.

Packer had only one condition before his final season: that no announcement be made to avoid a "go-away" tour.

The plan was to reveal the news this summer, but not this week. Then The Miami Herald reported it, and that was that.

"It's about the guys that play the game, the coaches that coach it," Packer said. "I didn't want anything to take away from that in any way, shape or form."

Kellogg, a game and studio analyst for CBS for 16 years, will be the man next to Jim Nantz on the 2009 Final Four broadcasts.

"With his unquestioned popularity and performance over the years, Clark Kellogg earned all rights to this top spot," Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports, said in a statement. "Like Billy Packer, Al McGuire or any of the most highly regarded broadcasters, Clark is an original voice with his own style and perspective."

The 68-year-old Packer said he was "happy" for Kellogg, who played at Ohio State and then in the NBA.

"I think he has worked his trade and certainly as a player was a student of the game. His work at CBS and the fact he is such a smart guy should serve him well," Packer said. "I wish him nothing but the best."

Packer also will end his long run as an analyst for Raycom, a regional network that covers the Atlantic Coast Conference.

"I have had a chance to broadcast most of the great games since college basketball got on national television and I'm not interested in broadcasting any more games," he said. "I enjoyed doing that but I won't be any more."

He said he is involved in a college basketball project that he'll discuss in a few months.

Packer was able to stay one of sports' top analysts without changing much over more than three decades. He spoke his mind about coaches, players, the NCAA tournament and the influx of foreign athletes into American college sports.

Notes

• Teddy Dupay, who played on Florida's runner-up team in the 2000 NCAA tournament, made an initial court appearance Monday on charges of raping and kidnapping a woman at a Utah ski resort.

Dupay did not enter a plea Monday in 3rd District Court. The 29-year-old Dupay is charged with felony rape, aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping. In court documents, Dupay denies raping the woman. The two had been in a relationship for two years.

• The son of North Carolina State coach Sidney Lowe pleaded guilty to dozens of charges connected to a March 2007 armed robbery.

A sentencing hearing for Sidney Lowe II is expected to end today in Guilford County (N.C.) Superior Court.