Watching the Paradise Jam

Here is information you'll need to see the Paradise Jam games next weekend.

Time Zones

The Virgin Islands are on Atlantic Standard Time, which is Eastern Standard Time plus one hour, so Pacific Standard Time plus four hours.

Brackets and Schedule

The teams playing in the St. Thomas Division are:

• Reef Division
• Duke
• Purdue
• Temple
• Island Division
• Connecticut
• Old Dominion
• Stanford

The three teams in each subdivision play each other on Thanksgiving and the following Friday and Saturday. There are three championship games on Sunday. Here is the schedule.

Now that you know who and when, here is where to watch. Some of the games can be seen on:

Television

The goStanford.com schedule shows that the Stanford/UConn game on the 22nd will be televised by FSN. My Tivo confirms that broadcast on Fox Sports Bay Area (FSBA). It hasn't found the Stanford/ODU game on the 24th, nor any of the championship games on the 25th. (But they may show up later -- check on those days.)

Several, but not all, of the Paradise Jam games will be shown on Fox College Sports (FCS) Pacific. Here is their schedule. (If that link doesn't work for you, try a different browser. It doesn't work with Firefox on either a Mac or a PC.)

How can you see FCS Pacific? It depends on your provider:

• Comcast offers FCS as part of its premium “Digital Sports Package,” for customers already subscribing to Comcast digital (not analog) service.
  The Digital Sports Package can be ordered by telephone (1-800-266-2278). The promotional rate is $3.00 a month, which increases to $4.95 a month after 6 months. So it would be possible to order the package for the Paradise Jam games and then cancel it, for a total cost of $3.00.
  FCS Pacific is Comcast channel 415 throughout the Bay Area.
• DirecTV is currently (11/19) offering FCS Pacific automatically (no special package) on "overflow channel" 669. The program is a mens' Paradise Jam game. I haven't been able to determine if this service will be available for the womens' games -- check on those days.
• Dish Network: I haven't found anything about FCS Pacific here, but if this is your provider, check your online guide.

You can get information about the availability of the FCS channels elsewhere by entering your zip code in the dark blue left-hand sidebar on the FCS website.

It's not clear what FCS Pacific will broadcast on the 25th. The schedule seems to indicate that just one of the championship games will be telecast. But Comcast channel 415 shows three WBB broadcasts on Sunday at 12:30, 3:00 and 5:30 PST -- I'm not sure what the first two are. The times correspond to the first two championship games, but the descriptions are "First Round" and "Second Round Coverage", so they may be prior game highlights. The third broadcast is live, so it will be the third championship game (the one between the #1 teams).

All of the games can be seen on:

Streaming Video

Basketball Travellers Inc. (BTI) will offer live video streaming of all the Paradise Jam games. Here is their schedule, and here is where you subscribe to the service. Be sure that you can view the sample video before you subscribe.

The package you want is: (Wmn) PARADISE JAM - ST THOMAS DIVISION ALL ACCESS PASS!, which costs $17.95.

Note: BTI assures me that the package includes the championship games on the 25th, even though the package description says, "Nov 22nd - Nov 24th".

And the Stanford games will be broadcast on:

KZSU

If you're not in range of the station (90.1 FM), you can listen to its audio stream.