Michigan
San Diego State
Viva Las Vegas: Wolverines to Open Players Era against San Diego State
11/21/2025 3:25:00 PM | Men's Basketball
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The seventh-ranked University of Michigan men's basketball team (4-0) will head west to Las Vegas, Nev., for the 2025 Players Era Festival. The Wolverines will open the event against San Diego State (2-1) on Monday, Nov. 24, at Michelob ULTRA Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. PT, with truTV televising the matchup featuring Brian Anderson, Grant Hill and Lauren Jbara on the call.
Notes
• The Players Era Festival is a multi-day men's and women's college basketball showcase in Las Vegas. A significant element of the event is its focus on Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Teams play a series of early-round games, and their performance in those matchups determines final seeding.
• Seeding is based on competitive metrics such as point differential, total points scored and points allowed. These factors determine who advances and how teams are positioned for the championship game.
• The 18 teams competing 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. 2 Houston, No. 16 Iowa State and No. 24 Kansas; Mountain West: San Diego State and UNLV; SEC: No. 11 Alabama, No. 22 Auburn and No. 20 Tennessee and West Coast: No. 13 Gonzaga
• Michigan will be part of the Players Era for the next two seasons (2025, 2026) with the option of adding a third appearance in 2027. The Wolverines open the 2025 event facing San Diego State (Nov. 25) and Auburn (Nov. 26). U-M's final game is TBD.
• San Diego State comes to Las Vegas at 2-1, rolling through its first two games against Long Beach State (77-45) and Idaho State (73-57) before getting pulled into a double-overtime shootout with Troy, falling 108-107.
• Before heading west, SDSU head coach Brian Dutcher spent nine seasons on Michigan's staff under Steve Fisher, including the Wolverines' 1989 NCAA championship run. He played a significant role in recruiting and developing the famed Fab Five, who guided U-M 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 his associate head coach -- a partnership that lasted nearly two decades until he assumed the reins of the program in 2017.
• Dutcher and U-M head coach Dusty May will cross paths for the first time since the 2023 NCAA Final Four, when San Diego State edged May's Florida Atlantic, 72-71, on April 1, 2023, in Houston.
• With four more points, Yaxel Lendeborg will reach 1,200 Division I points (currently 1,196). Overall, he has scored 2,222 career points (14.4 ppg).
• 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 -- missing only 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 Cadeau are the only Wolverines to make a three-pointer in all four games this season, combining to shoot 11-for-32 (34.4 percent) from deep.
