Previewing the Players Era Championship

If you read part one of my feast week megapreview last week, you’ll remember that I left one tournament off the list: the Players Era Championship. Though it’s just the second year of this event, it looms over the rest of Feast Week like the Burj Khalifa over the Dubai skyline. It’s so astronomically massive that even the best of the “other” events look tiny. Consider that over four days in Las Vegas we’ll see:

·      27 games contested by 18 teams

·      13 of these 18 teams made my preseason bracket, including 2 one-seeds and 6 teams seeded 3, 4, or 5

·      8 of the 18 are currently in the AP top 25 (and 6 of the top 16)

The word loaded doesn’t even capture it. This is like a mini-NCAA Tournament during Thanksgiving week, right down to the relentless wave of games on the first 2 days. We’ll see nine games both Monday and Tuesday, tipping at 60-90 minute intervals from 1pm to midnight. Too bad most of us are still working.\

How did the Players Era pull off such a feat?

Money, duh.

We’re fully in the NIL, pay-for-play era, and the NCAA is little more than a house of cards, susceptible to being knocked over by the slightest legal breeze. With feeble (at best) regulatory power, we’re likely to see all kinds of initiatives eager to profit from the cash cow that is college athletics, and the Players Era will happily dump a cool million into participating schools’ NIL funds in exchange for their collective brand power driving a hefty media rights package from Turner sports. Don’t be surprised if we see more than 18 teams involved next year, unless Maui or Atlantis or another enterprising organizer can up the NIL ante.

Let’s cast aside the cynicism of unbridled capitalist greed for a moment, though, and enjoy the product it will produce: a cavalcade of excellent basketball and a preview of what is to come in March. The NIL era may be the wild west, but the wild west was a damn fun era.

So, how will this bloated extravaganza work?

Participating teams have been assigned two “first round” games, one each on Monday and Tuesday. Teams will then be ranked by record and point differential (I assume; information about this part of the tournament is scarce) and matched up in nine consolation and/or championship games on Wednesday and Thursday. I assume there will be some sort of protocol to prevent conference foes from competing against one another, but again, details of this sort are shockingly hard to find.

Such an event is perhaps more difficult to predict than the 68-team joy festival of the NCAA Tournament, but that’s what we do around here, so here we go:

Day One

Tennessee over Rutgers, 81-64 (UT +17, RU -17)

Baylor over Creighton, 78-75 (BU +3, CU -3)

Kansas over Notre Dame, 73-62 (KU +11, ND -11)

Iowa State over St. Johns, 67-62 (ISU +5, SJ -5)

Houston over Syracuse, 79-59 (UH +20, SU -20)

Auburn over Oregon, 82-80 (AU +2, UO -2)

Alabama over Gonzaga, 95-87 (UA +8, GU -8)

Michigan over San Diego State, 80-65 (UM +15, SDSU -15)

Maryland over UNLV, 69-63 (UM +6, UNLV -6)

Day Two

Notre Dame over Rutgers, 72-68 (ND 1-1, -7; RU 0-2, -21)

Iowa State over Creighton, 77-65 (ISU 2-0, +17; CU 0-2, -15)

Kansas over Syracuse, 82-75 (KU 2-0, +18; SU 0-2, -27)

St. John’s over Baylor, 70-64 (SJ 1-1, +1; BU 1-1, -3)

Tennessee over Houston, 62-60 (UT 2-0, +19; UH 1-1, +18)

Michigan over Auburn, 87-79 (UM 2-0, +23; AU 1-1, -6)

Gonzaga over Maryland, 79-65 (GU 1-1, +6; UM 1-1, -8)

Oregon over San Diego State, 80-77 (UO 1-1, +1; SDSU 0-2, -18)

Alabama over UNLV, 103-74 (UA 2-0, +37; UNLV 0-2, -35)

Some observations on this two-day slate:

·      Two games are not nearly enough to divide these teams into standings that adequately reflect their true ability; it’s all about matchups

·      Kansas, who hasn’t yet hit its stride this season, gets the most favorable draw, facing middle-of-the-road ACC teams Notre Dame and Syracuse

·      Poor UNLV may be playing “at home,” but they’re severely overmatched

·      Apart from Kansas, these matchups are fairly well-divided

·      Point differential will be everything, so don’t be surprised to see teams try to run up the score instead of letting their foot off the gas. That will be an unusual wrinkle and I believe it will favor higher tempo teams, like Alabama and Gonzaga, as their style is more conducive to running up the score.

Predicted Standings

1)        Alabama: 2-0, +37

2)        Michigan: 2-0, +23

3)        Tennessee: 2-0, +19

4)        Kansas: 2-0, +18

5)        Iowa State: 2-0, +17

6)        Houston: 1-1, +18

7)        Gonzaga: 1-1. +6

8)        St. John’s: 1-1, +1

9)        Oregon: 1-1, +1

10)  Baylor: 1-1, -3

11)  Auburn: 1-1, -6

12)  Notre Dame: 1-1, -7

13)  Maryland: 1-1, -8

14)  Creighton: 0-2, -15

15)  San Diego State: 0-2, -18

16)  Rutgers: 0-2, -21

17)  Syracuse: 0-2, -27

18)  UNLV: 0-2, -35

Assuming that they won’t pit conference foes against one another (I honestly have no idea), here are the final round matchups, with my predictions:

·      UNLV over Syracuse, 79-73; UNLV’s “home” court pays off

·      San Diego State over Rutgers, 81-70; Rutgers misses their lottery picks terrible

·      Maryland over Creighton, 75-72; Creighton really misses Ryan Kalkbrenner

·      Auburn over Notre Dame, 89-70; battle of underperforming teams favors the Tigers

·      Baylor over Oregon, 78-70; Oregon won Players Era last year, not so this time around

·      Houston over St. John’s, 66-57; Houston drops a level to avoid conference foe ISU

·      Gonzaga over Iowa State, 84-76; Gonzaga gets 5^th after getting a bump up

·      Tennessee over Kansas, 82-69; Kansas’ struggles against blue bloods continues

·      Alabama over Michigan, 91-78; Bama’s tough early schedule pays off with comfortable win

After a look at what can potentially happen at the Players Era Championship, I think it’ll be a lot of sound and fury signifying little. There are opportunities for teams like Notre Dame and San Diego State, who could use a marquee win or two in their quiver, but the matchups are such that I don’t see them materializing. The most interesting early round contest is Tennessee-Houston, which I envision as a Vols upset win between similarly-minded teams. And in the end, Alabama continues to build what I believe will become a 1-seed resume. They’ve aggressively scheduled power opponents and will be able to absorb a few SEC defeats on the road to March Madness. The Tide roll in Vegas.