Teams, and fans, in it for long haul

Pre-Madness, there is, of course, spring training.

As college basketball’s regular season rolls into the first weekend of March, with about two weeks to go before Selection Sunday, ESPN on Thursday announced it had signed Bob Knight as an analyst throughout the upcoming NCAA tournament. ESPN advised viewers on its website to “gather up your munitions . . . because the General is coming to Bristol.”

While we pause to consider all the potential ramifications of that move, fans need to start getting fit. A long, grueling haul awaits us all.

The networks, realizing this, have combined to produce a dry run Saturday that will provide valuable Road-to-San Antonio road work -- and help deal with gaps in the sports TV programming schedule beyond what the majesty of arena football can provide.

Saturday’s workout schedule:

9 a.m.: Duke at North Carolina State (Channel 2): All eyes in the ACC are trained on the March 8 Duke-at-North Carolina confrontation. For the Blue Devils, this is the forever troublesome Can’t Look Past 11th-Place stepping stone.

11 a.m.: Georgetown at Marquette (Channel 2): Both teams have reached the NCAA Final Four since 2003.

1 p.m.: Washington State at Stanford (FSNW): Scouting combine for UCLA, which plays Stanford next Thursday. Washington State lost round one against Stanford, in overtime, on Feb. 2.

(TiVo alternative: Memphis at Southern Mississippi, CSTV. With last Saturday’s loss to Tennessee, Memphis rid itself of the impossible burden that came with opening the season 26-0. Against the Volunteers, the Tigers did what they had to do to prime for a run at the national title.)

3 p.m.: USC at Arizona State (Prime): Does the Pac-10 deserve seven teams in the NCAA tournament? Six? Five? As the debate continues, two teams assured of nothing right now need to take care of some business.

6 p.m.: Kansas State at Kansas (ESPN): Kansas State has Michael Beasley and a home victory over Kansas on Jan. 30. Kansas has had a month to stew about that.

8:30 p.m.: Cal State Northridge at UC Irvine (Prime): Five games not enough? For such sad cases, the Big West exists.

Also available for viewing this weekend:

UCLA at Arizona (Sunday, 1 p.m., Channel 2): Beyond that, there’s always Sunday and the Bruins and the Wildcats.

Kentucky at Tennessee (Sunday, 9 a.m., Channel 2): Tennessee defeated No. 1 Memphis on Saturday, held the top spot for a few hours, then lost to Vanderbilt, borrowing a script borrowed by a number of schools last college football season.

Dallas Mavericks at Lakers (Sunday, 12:30 p.m., Channel 7): For a few years there, keeping up with the Lakers wasn’t so difficult. Then came Andrew Bynum’s great leap forward, which caught the attention of everyone in L.A., even Kobe Bryant, followed by the Pau Gasol trade.

The subsequent Western Conference scramble included the Mavericks pulling the trigger on the Jason Kidd deal, which had owner Mark Cuban complaining to Sports Illustrated, “This is the biggest [financial] hit I’ve taken on a trade. Nothing within shouting distance.”

Sunday, then, Cuban gets an early assessment of his investment.

Honda Classic (today, 1 and 6:30 p.m., Golf Channel; Saturday and Sunday, noon, Channel 4): In this week’s episode of the Quiet Sport That Roared, Nick Faldo became the latest Golf Channel commentator to apologize for on-air comments -- these made about the superiority of the TaylorMade-Adidas golf ball over Nike. Curiously, or maybe not, Faldo, formerly sponsored by Nike, made these comments days after signing a long-term deal with TaylorMade-Adidas.

Nike also lost its sponsorship deal with the University of Hawaii football program when Hawaii reached a new agreement with Under Armour. Tough times for the Swoosh? Not quite. The company recently announced it had replaced Adidas as sponsor of France’s national soccer team, a 2006 World Cup finalist. In the world of international sports business, that is called a nice rebound.

“Outside The Lines” (Sunday, 6:30 a.m., ESPN): The program examines enablers of baseball’s steroids era. All you need to know about that issue is summed up in an exchange between ESPN reporter T.J. Quinn and former New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles General Manager Jim Duquette.

Quinn: “Was there anybody who ever said. ‘This is just wrong, morally, ethically’? Did anyone ever make that argument?”

Duquette: “No. No. Never did I have anybody within our organization, and I don’t recall any conversation outside the organization with any club executive that said, ‘This is wrong.’ ”

In somewhat related news, Roger Clemens showed up at Houston Astros minor league camp this week to pitch batting practice and complained when a photographer started taking pictures.

“This isn’t a zoo!” Clemens snapped.

No. It’s a circus.

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christine.daniels@latimes.com