College Sports

The man whom many considered college basketball's know-it-all has known for more than a year that the 2007-08 season would be his last as CBS' lead analyst.

Before the season, the television network's brass informed Billy Packer that it wanted to give Clark Kellogg a shot at the lead analyst's role on live games. The outspoken Packer, 68, who had been working under a series of one-year contracts with CBS "on my own accord," asked only that nothing be said about his departure until after the season so the news wouldn't detract from the games.

CBS waited until Monday to announce that Packer's contract would not be renewed for a 28th season and that Kellogg would replace him. Packer quickly made it clear that he wasn't just done at CBS.

"I'm not going to  broadcast any more basketball games," Packer said in a telephone interview Monday, meaning that he also won't return as an analyst on Raycom's ACC telecasts or consider offers from other networks.

Thus ends a remarkable run on national TV, including 34 straight NCAA Final Fours. Over more than three decades with NBC and CBS, Packer gained a reputation for taking strong stands and refusing to budge from them, generating both intense admiration and dislike.

"I tell you, I'll miss the old crank," said Will Blythe, author of "To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever," a book on the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry. "I never thought I'd say that. Next to Dick Vitale's irrational exuberance, Billy Packer seemed like at least someone who hadn't lost his mind altogether.

"I got so I could depend on his acrid evaluations of coaches and players."

But CBS' regular-season and NCAA Tournament ratings declined in 2006 and '07. The 2006-07 regular-season average was the network's lowest ever, and the 2007 tournament average was its second lowest. (The ratings for last season were not available from CBS.) CBS Sports President Sean McManus has insisted that such factors as lopsided games were to blame.

In a prepared statement released Monday, McManus said only that Kellogg deserved the new assignment. McManus offered no further explanation for Packer's departure.

"With his unquestioned popularity and performance over the years, Clark Kellogg earned all rights to this top spot," McManus said in the prepared 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."

Packer disputed a USA Today report that he had been fired.

"No, that's not true," he said. "I worked through and completed my contract. I mean, you'd have to ask CBS that, but I completed my obligations to CBS, which was to work through this year's championship."