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Alabama basketball draws Gonzaga, UNLV in Players Era Festival

63571867_t466o7i5ncby: Blake Byler07/01/25blakebyler45

For the second year in a row, Alabama will travel to Las Vegas during Thanksgiving week to take part in the Players Era Festival, college basketball’s first NIL-based multi-team event. The event has expanded to 18 teams this season after being an 8-team event last year, with teams playing two set opponents on Nov. 24 and Nov. 25, with the final game against a TBD opponent played later in the week.

Alabama’s first two opponents will be Gonzaga on Nov. 24 (8:30 p.m. CT) and UNLV on Nov. 25 (11 p.m. CT), according to Dylan Burkhardt of UMhoops.com. Seeding for the final round of games will be determined by each team’s first two games.

Last season the Crimson Tide won its first two games of the tournament, beating Houston and Rutgers, before falling to Oregon in the championship game of the event.

Gonzaga and UNLV only add to Alabama’s ridiculous non-conference schedule, which is shaping up to be more difficult than last season’s. The Tide will also face the likes of St. John’s, Purdue, Illinois, Arizona and Clemson as marquee matchups before conference play begins.

It’ll be the first time Alabama has played Gonzaga since the two split a home-and-home series during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, and the first time its faced UNLV since the 2020 Maui Invitational.

Alabama basketball will begin play on Monday, Nov. 3, hosting North Dakota at Coleman Coliseum.

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