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2025-2026 College Basketball General Discussion

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USC held on to beat Boise St in Maui. That was another crazy game for the Trojans. They had a 3-point lead under 1 minute to play, and turned it over on the inbounds pass by not catching the ball & letting it bounce out of bounds. They got the ball back later on with a 3-point lead, and then got an offensive foul on the inbounds play with 6 seconds left, then the same player that just got the offensive foul picked up another foul without any time coming off the clock to put Boise on the line. USC was lucky that they didn't give that game away.
 
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Rutgers is in the Players Era festival, they got boat-raced by Tennessee today.
OSU will participate in the Players Era the next 4 years.
www.thelantern.com

Ohio State to join Players Era Festival in 2026

Ohio State men’s basketball is cashing in on the NIL era. The Buckeyes inked a four-year contract Monday to play in the Players Era Festival, according to a report by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. The agreement will start in 2026 and run through 2029. The midseason tournament will be played in...
www.thelantern.com www.thelantern.com
 
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Players Era Festival has Michigan-Gonzaga for the championship. The top-4 teams in the field, as judged by such varied data as AP ranking and margin of victory within the Players Era festival, also obtain additional NIL funds, with the champion taking an extra $1 million. Iowa State is big mad they did not get a placement within the top-4 after beating highly ranked St John's and then housing Creighton by 18 points, which has the event organizers re-thinking their basis for selection. The Players Era does not actually have a real bracket, they literally decided the matchups for today after midnight yesterday.
www.espn.com

Players Era CEO flips, to rethink format for 2026

After promising to stick to the current format, Players Era Festival CEO Seth Berger told ESPN that the event will consider a new one when next year's field expands to 32 teams.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 
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I think part of what Iowa State and their fans are upset about is that Kansas was awarded the 3-4 place game (which gives the players on each team hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra NIL money) in spite of "only" beating unranked Notre Dame and Syracuse, while Iowa State beat Creighton by more points than Kansas beat either of those teams and also had a marquee win within the event over a ranked St John's team. Additionally, Kansas is currently unranked in the AP poll, whereas Iowa State is ranked 15th. Given the criteria that were offered to base the decisions for selections of the top-4, it looks pretty much like Iowa State was screwed over by the Players Era event organizers and Kansas was handed a spot in the money in spite of being unranked and not beating a ranked team in the event.
 
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DZ83CK said:
I think part of what Iowa State and their fans are upset about is that Kansas was awarded the 3-4 place game (which gives the players on each team hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra NIL money) in spite of "only" beating unranked Notre Dame and Syracuse, while Iowa State beat Creighton by more points than Kansas beat either of those teams and also had a marquee win within the event over a ranked St John's team. Additionally, Kansas is currently unranked in the AP poll, whereas Iowa State is ranked 15th. Given the criteria that were offered to base the decisions for selections of the top-4, it looks pretty much like Iowa State was screwed over by the Players Era event organizers and Kansas was handed a spot in the money in spite of being unranked and not beating a ranked team in the event.
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I should add Kansas did come back and beat a ranked Tennessee team after I posted this, but the point stands, Kansas had not beaten a ranked team in the event prior to being placed in the top-4 of the event - which is the only group where you actually get more money than the baseline that every team gets for participating - while Iowa State did beat a ranked team prior to the last stage and got shut out of the extra money. Now, Kansas had only played unranked teams there, but that also means the organizers made a conscious choice to pair them against two of the lesser teams in the field. And again, I believe the organizers were supposed to consider the fact that Iowa State was ranked and Kansas was unranked as a factor in who was also paid extra in the end. I think they semi-rigged it so Kansas players got more NIL, and it certainly gives reason to question the choices of the powers that be in the Players Era Festival. So if and when OSU is participating in the Players Era event, don't count on the Buckeyes getting a fair shake in getting bonus money, as there probably will be some bias towards the blue bloods that goes into that.
 
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