Hiestand: Is the TV set big enough for Barkley & Vitale?

• Basketball fans might soon get to see Charles Barkley and Dick Vitale work an event together
• TNT, ESPN and CBS might be able to work out a Barkley-Vitale pairing
• Bob Costas still raising gun issue in the murder-suicide involving the K.C. Chiefs' Jovan Belcher

This might scare basketball purists and intrigue viewers who see TV sports as show biz. Either way, get ready: Two of the biggest names associated with their networks, ESPN's Dick Vitale and TNT's Charles Barkley, might call TV basketball together -- including NCAA tournament action.

CBS has previously asked ESPN if it could use Vitale on its NCAA tournament coverage. ESPN has declined, saying, in effect, that Vitale is a franchise player.

But John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president for production, told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday that "we are interested" in letting Vitale and Barkley call action together.

Wildhack wouldn't specify whether he meant just on NCAA action, or some package of games that might include TNT's NBA or ESPN's college games. But if it's a package that includes Barkley on ESPN, says Wildhack, "We wouldn't need a play-by-play person."

The principals are already sold.

"With the NCAA, I would love to call a game with Dick Vitale," Barkley told USA TODAY Sports. "That'd be something I'd really like. I've talked to Dick about it. We're all in the same business of promoting the tournament. We all need to forget the ESPN, CBS, TNT stuff -- we're all in the business of promoting college basketball."

Asked Tuesday about the chance to work with Barkley, Vitale seemed even more psyched: "I'd love to do a game with him! He's terrific! We'd have so much fun on the telecast."

And, no doubt, generate lots of rants in cyberspace about how TV coverage is just supposed to be about the players and coaches. Which might have made sense years ago, before networks began collectively paying billions in rights fees for games they have to turn around and sell as TV shows.

CBS and TNT parent Turner Sports now jointly cover the NCAA tournament. And Tuesday, they responded to the idea of using Vitale on it with a joint corporate statement: "There have been no discussions and we're very pleased with our CBS/TNT announcer lineup."

But CBS might just consider using Vitale to be a "no-brainer." That's how CBS Sports chief Sean McManus put it in 2006. McManus used the phrase when responding to why CBS had asked ESPN to use Vitale on the tournament, but was turned down: "It seemed like an obvious no-brainer that would have benefited everyone, although I certainly respect ESPN's decision."

So did Vitale. "Several times over the years CBS wanted me to do NCAA tournament games," he said Tuesday. "But I didn't get upset with ESPN. I was flattered they thought that much of me."

Barkley over the years has noted he has stayed in TV longer than he expected -- "I was only going to do it four years, and this is my 14th year" -- and this season will occasionally move out of the studio to work NBA games on TNT, including the Los Angeles Lakers-New York Knicks on Dec. 13.

"Do I want to do games all the time? I don't know. It's just so I don't get bored and stale," Barkley said.

And he's not impressed about the NBA season so far: "I'm disappointed in the level of basketball, to be honest with you." Barkley believes only a handful of teams -- the Miami, Heat, Brooklyn Nets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs -- could contend for the title.

But he is pumped about this change of pace: Training with boxer Manny Pacquiao for a TNT special after the channel's NBA doubleheader Thursday.

Barkley, with TNT's Reggie Miller, hung out with Pacquiao for a show to help promote TNT corporate cousin HBO airing the Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez pay-per-view fight Saturday -- "It was one of the coolest things I've done in my life."

Barkley saw Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach, who has Parkinson's, don pads and absorb body blows from the fighter: "To watch Freddie take all those punches was inspiring."

Just as, Barkley says, the prospect of working on-air with Vitale: "That'd be really cool."

Costas, continued: NBC's Bob Costas on Tuesday continued talking about his on-air comments on gun violence in the wake of the murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend. Sunday, Costas had said Belcher and Kasandra Perkins would be alive if the player hadn't owned a gun.

Whatever one might think of Costas assuming he already knew the facts of a still unfolding case, he was correct in saying Tuesday on Dan Patrick's radio show (simulcast on the NBC Sports Network cable channel) that "there are a number of issues related to this that we could begin to talk about and think about. The problem was that I didn't have enough time to get to many of them. And that, I think, was my mistake."

But Costas will get more time on Thursday's Costas Tonight on NBCSN (9 ET), with scheduled guests including Barkley and John McEnroe.