Your non-college football Atlanta sports TV schedule. College football's in the next post. It got too crowded to put everything in one. You understand. All times ET.
↵Basketball
↵Kentucky Wildcats at North Carolina Tar Heels, 12:30, CBS: Carolina needs to right the ship in a hurry, because it's not getting any easier with the Texas Longhorns on the way and ACC play shortly after. A competitive showing against a marquee program that's only done minimal floundering so far would be a nice start.
↵Butler Bulldogs at Duke Blue Devils, 3:15, ESPN: "Hey, what'd you guys do this offseason?" "Oh, just hung out with Obama and them after winning the national title. How about you guys?" "Worked on half-court leaners for a few hours at a time every day up until this morning." "We like to think that nobody likes us because we're mostly Caucasian."
↵Illinois Fighting Illini at Gonzaga Bulldogs, 5:15, ESPN
↵N.C. State Wolfpack at Syracuse Orange, 5:30, ESPN2
↵Georgia Southern Eagles at College of Charleston Cougars, 6, CSS: Show of hands if you still miss Bobby Cremins.
↵Atlanta Hawks at Miami Heat, 7:30, SportSouth: After talking greasy about the Heat for months now, actually kind of nervous about the Hawks playing them. At least we have the Joe Johnson injury excuse. Because how could we win despite having the highest-paid player on either team sidelined?
↵Houston Rockets at Chicago Bulls, 8, WGN
↵Hockey
↵Atlanta Thrashers at Washington Capitals, 7, Fox Sports South: Upon surging into if-the-season-ended-today playoff position, the Thrashers take on the Caps for what feels like the 16th time this season. If playoff standings hold, these teams will meet in the postseason and run their season series up to about 504 solid hours of hockey.