Billy Packer out, Clark Kellogg in as CBS lead analyst

Billy Packer has called his last Final Four for CBS.

After 27 years as the network’s lead college basketball analyst, Packer, 68, will vacate his chair beside Jim Nantz, according to wire reports.

His replacement will be Clark Kellogg, 47, who has been a game and studio analyst for 16 years.

Packer has announced 34 consecutive Final Fours. A CBS official told the Miami Herald that Packer plans to pursue other basketball projects.

Packer spent seven years at NBC before joining CBS in 1981. He and Nantz have been on-air partners since 1991.

Packer is known for his ability to dissect the strategy of a game, but is also renowned for controversial remarks he made on and off the air.

In 2006, he decried the inclusion of four Missouri Valley Conference teams in the NCAA Tournament, only to watch two of them – Bradley and Wichita State – reach the round of 16.

Six years earlier, at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, Packer did not react favorably when two female student employees asked to see Packer’s credentials and identification before letting him in the arena. One of the students, Jenn Feinberg, reported that Packer said, “You need to get a life. Since when do we let women control who gets into a men’s basketball game? Why don’t you go find a women’s game to let people into?”

Packer later apologized.

In 1996, Packer apologized on air after calling then-Georgetown guard Allen Iverson a “tough, little monkey.”

During his playing days, Packer was a member of Wake Forest’s 1962 Final Four team and was an assistant coach there before beginning a career in broadcasting.

 chris.hine@latimes.com