Jason Benetti to replace Brian Anderson during NCAA Tournament first round

TNT Sports play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson is taking a breather after clearly showing up sick to work during Tuesday night’s First Four game between Texas and NC State.

According to a report by The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, incoming NBC broadcaster Jason Benetti, who is working the NCAA Tournament for Westwood One on radio, will fill-in for Anderson during Thursday’s first-round games in Buffalo, NY. Benetti will join analyst Jim Jackson and sideline reporter Allie LaForce.

Jason Benetti will fill-in for Brian Anderson on Thursday’s Men’s Tournament coverage, The Athletic has learned.

Anderson, who was clearly under the weather working with Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale on Tuesday’s First Four, hopes to be back on Saturday.

Westwood One and NBC…

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) March 18, 2026

Anderson was very apparently under the weather while working Tuesday’s First Four game alongside Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale. It seems as if his voice has not improved to the point where CBS and TNT are comfortable allowing him to call four games on Thursday, hence the networks reached out to Benetti.

Per Marchand, “Westwood One and NBC did TNT/CBS a solid” by allowing Benetti to call the games on TV.

The crew is scheduled to call each of the four first-round games in Buffalo. Those include Louisville-South Florida, Michigan State-North Dakota State, Michigan-Howard, and Georgia-Saint Louis.

Calling the first round of the NCAA Tournament is one of the most challenging broadcast assignments in all of sports. Crews are tasked with learning the ins and outs of eight separate teams, many of which come from mid-major conferences and aren’t particularly well-known, in the matter of three days between Selection Sunday and Thursday. Then, those crews call four games back-to-back-to-back-to-back, making for more than 10 consecutive hours of broadcasting.

To state the obvious, it’s not an assignment that would be easy to handle with a hoarse voice.

Anderson “hopes to be back on Saturday” for the second-round games, Marchand reports.

Funnily enough, this assignment will also allow Jason Benetti to complete a “career cycle” of sorts. The veteran broadcaster, who will begin serving as NBC’s lead MLB voice in the coming weeks, has worked for ESPN, Fox, and NBC in the past. Adding CBS and Turner will make him a cool 5-for-5 when it comes to calling games for every major American sports broadcaster.