San Diego State learns pairings for basketball's Players Era event in Las Vegas

San Diego State never thought its games in the Players Era event in Las Vegas next November would be easy, and they're not.

The 24-team college basketball extravaganza announced the format and first-round pairings on Thursday, a 16-team bracket during Thanksgiving week and an eight-team bracket the week before.

The Aztecs are in the larger bracket, opening Nov. 24 against Iowa State. The winner/loser plays either Maryland or Tennessee two days later on Thanksgiving.

The third game on Friday would be against someone from the other side of the bracket: St. John's, Oregon, Louisville or Texas Tech. Win the first three games and you play a fourth on Saturday for the championship of the 16-team bracket.

The other side of the Players Era 16 bracket includes Gonzaga, Kansas State, Baylor, Alabama, Michigan, Creighton, TCU and Miami.

The Players Era 8 bracket the week before has Houston, Rutgers, Florida, Notre Dame, Auburn, West Virginia, Kansas and UNLV. There will be no possibility of a fourth game for those teams.

Games will be at T-Mobile Arena or Mandalay Bay's Michelob Ultra Arena (where SDSU played all three games last year). ESPN replaces TNT as the primary broadcaster, which is notable because the rapid growth of Players Era – and its guaranteed NIL payouts – has severely downgraded the fields in ESPN properties like the Maui Invitational and the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. Tip times have not been announced.

Iowa State went 29-8 last season, got a No. 2 seed and reached the Sweet 16 before losing to Tennessee after star forward Joshua Jefferson was injured in the opening round. Three of the six leading scorers are back for coach TJ Otzelberger, plus five transfers and a quartet of four-star prep prospects.

The Cyclones currently are No. 12 in CBS Sports' offseason rankings and No. 18 in ESPN.

In all, 10 members of ESPN's current top 25 are in the Players Era, two in the eight-team bracket and half the 16-team tournament. Thirteen of the 24 reached the NCAA Tournament this year.

Games were sparsely attended the first two years, but the attraction for schools is guaranteed NIL contribution in the high six figures or low seven figures, plus an additional purse to the champions.

The first two years did not use a straight bracket format, relying on tiebreakers to determine matchups for the third day. After receiving criticism about teams purposely running up the score, organizers moved to more traditional brackets for 2026. Games in the 16-team tournament are Tuesday, Thanksgiving Day and Friday; the two teams that advance to the championship play Saturday.

The tournament goes dark the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but it won't be without college basketball in Las Vegas. Duke plays UConn that day at T-Mobile Arena as part of the Blue Devils' series of nonconference games televised by Amazon's Prime Video.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 3:51 PM.