NEW YORK -- Richard Linklater's college basketball comedy "Everybody Wants Some" will open the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival.

SXSW announced Tuesday that Linklater's follow-up to his Oscar-winning drama "Boyhood" will kick off the 23rd annual edition of the Austin, Texas, festival on March 11. The film, written and directed by the Austin-based Linklater, is about a group of college basketball players adjusting to "unsupervised adulthood."

Named after a Van Halen song, it's a kind of spiritual sequel to Linklater's "Dazed and Confused," which partly centred on high-school football and baseball players.

Janet Pierson, head of SXSW Film, said the film is "instantly quotable and filled with great new talent ... a paean to competition and coming of age in the '80s."

Paramount will release "Everybody Want Some" on April 14.