For Field of 68, bringing back college basketball’s 24-hour tip-off marathon is a labor of love

There are far too many things in sports that, unfortunately, will never return. Times change. Thankfully, the Field of 68 is here to warm your nostalgic heart.

College basketball fans rejoice. The Field of 68 is reviving college basketball’s 24-hour tip-off marathon. Remember watching games from morning to midnight? Experience that feeling again on Nov. 2, with eight matchups running from High Point vs. Liberty at 12:01 a.m. ET to Furman vs. Bethune-Cookman, which tips off at 8 p.m. The games will be streamed on the Field of 68’s YouTube channel and on X.

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ESPN started the 24-hour tip-off marathon in 2008 but discontinued it in 2017, citing programming challenges. Now, it’s back, albeit on a different platform and in a different format. The Worldwide Leader in Sports started with 14 games across five time zones. The Field of 68’s version is eight games across two time zones (Sioux Falls, S.D. and Rock Hill, South Carolina). This edition also only features mid-major programs.

“I was at ESPN when they had it going, and I know everybody loved it, myself included, the diehards,” Jeff Goodman, co-founder of the Field of 68, told Awful Announcing. “And to me, I didn’t understand why it went away. Probably financial reasons, I would assume. When we started this thing up, we never had any intent of doing games. And then all of a sudden we started doing one, and then we did three the next year. And then I’m like, I said it in jest, I think, to Rob (Dauster) first. ‘Let’s do 24 hours straight.’ We went three to six, and then I’m like, ‘We can do this. We can absolutely do it.’ I think the coolest part is obviously bringing it back for the diehards.”

The Field of 68 has aired games before; its cofounders, Goodman and Dauster, are well known in the college basketball world. Both said that getting teams to agree to participate wasn’t difficult, though there were challenges.

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“It wasn’t hard to get people to agree to play in it,” Dauster said. “It was hard to get…

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Publish date : 2026-08-13 14:00:00

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