ANN ARBOR, Michigan. — The seventh-ranked University of Michigan men’s basketball team (4-0) will head west to Las Vegas, Nevada, for the 2025 Players Era Festival. The Wolverines will open the event against San Diego State (2-1) on Monday, November 24 at Michelob ULTRA Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. PT, with truTV televising the match featuring Brian Anderson, Grant Hill and Lauren Jbara on the call.
Remarks
• The Players Era Festival is a multi-day showcase of men’s and women’s college basketball in Las Vegas. An important element of the event is the emphasis on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). Teams play a series of first round matches, and their performance in these matchups determines the final standings.
• Ranking is based on competitive metrics such as point differential, total points scored and points awarded. These factors determine who advances and how teams are positioned for the championship game.
• The 18 teams participating in the Players Era include: ACC: Notre Dame and Syracuse; Big East: Creighton and No. 14 St. John’s; Big Ten: Maryland, No. 7 Michigan, Oregon and Rutgers; Big 12: Baylor, No. 3 Houston, No. 15 Iowa State and Kansas; Mountain West: San Diego State and UNLV; SEC: No. 8 Alabama, No. 21 Auburn and No. 17 Tennessee and West Coast: No. 12 Gonzaga
• Michigan will be part of the Players Era for the next two seasons (2025, 2026) with the possibility of adding a third appearance in 2027. The Wolverines will open the 2025 event against San Diego State (Nov. 25) and Auburn (Nov. 26). UM’s final game is TBD.
• San Diego State arrives in Las Vegas with a 2-1 record, having played its first two games against Long Beach State (77-45) and Idaho State (73-57) before finding itself drawn into a double overtime against Troy, losing 108-107.
• Before heading west, SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher spent nine seasons with Michigan under Steve Fisher, including the Wolverines’ NCAA championship run in 1989. He played an important role in recruiting and developing the famed Fab Five, who guided UM to back-to-back appearances in the national title game in 1992 and 1993. When Fisher took over at San Diego State, Dutcher followed as associate head coach – a partnership that lasted nearly two decades until he took the reins of the program in 2017.
• Dutcher and UM head coach May dusty will cross paths for the first time since the 2023 NCAA Final Four, when San Diego State defeated May’s Florida Atlantic, 72-71, on April 1, 2023, in Houston.
• With four additional points, Yaxel Lendeborg will reach 1,200 Division I points (currently 1,196). In total, he scored 2,222 career points (14.4 points per game).
• Will Tschetter is one game away from becoming the 76th Wolverine in program history to appear in 100 career games. He enters the week with 99 appearances and has played in 72 of the last 73 contests – only missing the game at Northwestern (Feb. 22, 2025) due to illness. Tschetter made his first start since March 13, 2023, in the win over Middle Tennessee, marking the 15th start of his career.
• Lendeborg and Elliot Gift are the only Wolverines to score three points in all four games this season, combining to shoot 11 of 32 (34.4%) from deep.
