ESPN is eying Bomani Jones and Pablo S. Torre to replace Jemele Hill and Michael Smith in the noon time slot on ESPN2, sources tell Sporting News. The two up and comers are under consideration to create their own studio show, succeeding “His & Hers” when Hill and Smith move to the 6 p.m. “SportsCenter” next year. Both Jones and Torre are viewed as rising talents in Bristol. However, a source said a final decision hasn’t been made. And Jones/Torre is just one of several scenarios under consideration. ESPN declined to comment.

The changes to the ESPN lineup are continuing in the wake of Michael Smith and Jemele Hill becoming 6 p.m. SportsCenter hosts starting in February. That’s opened up the old noon Eastern on ESPN2 slot that Smith and Hill used to fill with His and Hers, and according to Michael McCarthy of The Sporting News, Pablo Torre (right above) and Bomani Jones (left above) are under consideration to do a combined studio show in that slot

So, this is still very preliminary at this point, but it’s certainly interesting that Jones and Torre are under consideration here. Both have demonstrated a wide range of talents at ESPN over the past few years, with Torre writing for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com and showing a solid TV presence on everything from Olbermann to Around The Horn and Jones becoming a key part of Highly Questionable and also hosting his The Right Time radio show. They might be interesting figures to bounce off each other, too; both are very smart and offer some outside-of-the-box perspectives, and a show with both seems more likely to be about interesting, thought-provoking nuanced discussion than embracing debate and hot takes. We’ll see if this happens, but it’s definitely an idea with some potential.

[The Sporting News]