The University of Maine women’s basketball team will get a chance to notch its 13th straight win on live regional television as Sunday’s game will be aired by both New England Sports Network and Bangor station WVII (Channel 7).

The America East conference-leading Black Bears will host Binghamton at Alfond Arena Sunday at noon. The game will be televised as part of the America East season-long TV schedule and is being aired live throughout New England by NESN and in New York on the Empire TV network.

The game is the first of two Maine basketball games on the WVII broadcast schedule. The other is March 2, when the Maine men play a 4 p.m. game at the University of Hartford. The games are provided to WVII via the AE Television Network, which is broadcasting a 17-game schedule this season including regular season and postseason games.

“This is the fourth year we’ve done it since I’ve been here and I think we’ve been doing it for six years or so now,” said Mike Palmer, WVII’s general manager.

There’s a good chance the Maine men and women will appear again in March, this time on WVII sister station WCKD (Channel 30).

WCKD will also be providing live America East basketball coverage as it has gained the TV rights to the men’s semifinal games on March 10, the women’s semifinals on March 14, and the women’s championship game March 15.

“We had some other games we could have taken, but they wouldn’t have been University of Maine games,” Palmer said. “We’ve done some non-Maine games in the past, besides playoff games, but not this year.”

In an ironic twist, former WVII sports director and current Fox Sports Net New England broadcaster Eric Frede will provide play-by-play on Sunday’s telecast.

Sunday’s women’s game will pre-empt an ABC network NBA broadcast and the March 2 men’s game will pre-empt PGA golf, but the PGA Cup match coverage will be aired on a tape-delay basis that night (Monday morning) at 1:30 a.m.

Although Palmer doesn’t have much in the way of ratings information to compare Maine basketball broadcasts to network programming, he says it’s a safe bet Black Bear broadcasts get higher ratings, provided the NBA broadcasts don’t involve the Celtics.

“Oh absolutely… No doubt,” Palmer said. “There’s definitely a public following behind it.”

Junior high hoop on TV

For the first time in recent memory, a local station will provide complete broadcast coverage of a junior high school basketball game.

Bangor’s WCKD (Ch. 30, Adelphia Cable Ch. 10) will air this week’s Orrington/Winterport girls game on a tape-delay basis Sunday after network coverage of the Daytona 500 concludes (approximately 4:30-5 p.m.).

“We’re going to put this junior high basketball game on WCKD, just because we can and we have the flexibility to do it,” said WVII general manager Mike Palmer. “I’m told it’s a grudge match because Winterport had won 50 or 60 games in a row until Orrington beat them earlier this season.”

Scrolling through the tourney

Bangor TV station WVII (Ch. 7) will add a new wrinkle to Eastern Maine basketball tournament coverage. The ABC affiliate will provide hourly scoring updates of the games each day games are played.

“It’s going to be on the hour during the daytime,” said WVII general manager Mike Palmer. “Our sports guys will be down there and what they’ll be doing is calling the station with updates and we’ll type it in and run it across the screen.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net