Rece Davis (right) is the host of College GameDay for ESPN.

ESPN has announced this season’s schedule for its traveling GameDay show for college basketball, and that will include a stop in Tucson for the Arizona Wildcats’ game against Washington on Jan. 28.

The teams will be hard-pressed, however, to play a better game than they did last season in McKale Center, when Derrick Williams swatted Darnell Gant’s last-second shot into the Zona Zoo. Arizona held on to win 87-86.

Hmmm … would Jan. 28 be a good time for another White Out at McKale?

Rece Davis will be the host of GameDay, joined by analysts Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Hubert Davis and Bob Knight.

(Zona Zoo: You can start working on the big cutout heads off all the ESPN guys, like, right now.)

Here is ESPN’s GameDay schedule:

Jan. 14: North Carolina at Florida State
Jan. 21: Louisville at Pittsburgh
Jan. 28: Washington at Arizona
Feb. 4: Kansas at Missouri
Feb. 11: Kentucky at Vanderbilt
Feb. 18: Ohio State at Michigan
Feb. 25: Syracuse at Connecticut
Mar. 3: North Carolina at Duke or Texas at Kansas

Related: UA basketball notes — Miller’s recruiting prowess, a change to the court, Fogg’s shooting …

Arizona sophomore quarterback Nick Foles will meet with reporters Tuesday morning in his only non-ESPN media gathering of the week.

Nick Foles/TucsonCitizen.com photo

The guess is that ESPN this week will be working up a feature on Foles for Saturday’s GameDay program from Tucson, and that a good part of the questioning Tuesday morning will be about his late-game brain cramp against Cal, when his illegal double-pass play took Arizona out of range for a potential game-winning field goal.

If he handles the mental anguish as well as physical pain, he should be just fine for the Oregon game this week.

One of the best background stories on Foles is from his senior season at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. He played most of the season with a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder, but he kept on playing because he wanted to be there for his team. He led Westlake to the 5A Division I state championship game.

“I hurt it in the fourth game,” Foles said in a recent interview.

“I remember the hit that hurt it. I will always remember it. It’s on our highlight reel, so I get to relive it if I ever want to watch the highlight reel because somehow we scored a touchdown on it.

“It was one of those things where I told myself I was fine, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. I didn’t tell my dad. I wanted to finish my senior year. The shoulder kept popping out of the socket and doing all kinds of weird stuff. I was like, ‘It’s fine, it’s probably just a little bruise.’”

It wasn’t until after the season that tests revealed the torn labrum, which was repaired by the famed Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala.

How did that come about? With a little help from Drew Brees, also a Westlake alum.

“We know his mom and dad,” Foles said of Brees, “and we asked where he had his surgery, and they said, ‘Dr. Andrews.’ He actually called Dr. Andrews for me, and (Brees) have me a phone call and left a message on my phone.

“I have always looked up to him and what kind of guy he is. He’s an amazing guy, an amazing football player, so that was kind of cool.”

Related video at wildaboutazcats.com: Oregon coach Chip Kelly talks about Foles and Arizona

ESPN GameDay is bringing its popular Saturday morning pregame show to Tucson this week for the Arizona-Oregon game.

Chris Fowler

Even with Arizona’s loss at Cal on Saturday, the UA-Oregon matchup is still for control of the league race and is the best game of the day. Although ESPN on Sunday morning was still promoting the falsehood that Arizona’s loss meant that only Oregon was in the driver’s seat, the reality is that both teams are in the same position — win out and they will go to the Rose Bowl to play Big Ten champ Ohio State.

This will be the first appearance ever for GameDay in Tucson.

The big question: Will Lee Corso put on a Wilbur the Wildcat mascot head or an Oregon duck head to signify his pick to win?

Corso, in Saturday’s show, predicted Cal would beat Arizona, after which host Chris Fowler turned to him and said, “And if we’re there, they’ll remember you picked against them.”

Well, they will be here, so get your signs ready for the TV cameras and get ready to pack Arizona Stadium in what is the most important home game UA has ever played this late in the season.

The game will begin at 6 p.m. and be televised by ABC. The university is billing this as a “Red Out,” with fans encouraged to wear red. Also, 10,000 red rally towels will be distributed to the Zona Zoo student section.

See, I told you that there was no cause for doom and gloom after the loss to Cal. As I wrote: “By the end of this week, excitement should overcome the fans’ bitter reaction to the Cal loss.”

Fowler and an ESPN announcing crew were here two years when Oregon, then ranked No. 2 in the nation, played at Arizona on a Thursday night. Helped by a knee injury to Ducks quarterback Dennis Dixon, the Wildcats pulled off the big upset, 34-24.