In A City Of Raiders And Knights, College Basketball Reigns Supreme In Las Vegas Thanksgiving Week
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
College basketball is king in Las Vegas this Thanksgiving week, with some of the sport’s biggest names like Duke, Gonzaga and UCLA playing in holiday week tournaments and one-off games at T-Mobile Arena and Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena.
College hoops also reign in early March when four different conferences like the Pac-12 and the Mountain West hold their year-end tournaments at sports venues here in Las Vegas.
But what’s newsworthy about these Thanksgiving week college basketball tourneys is that Las Vegas Events non-profit — the promotional arm of the public Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) — is not sponsoring or subsidizing the events this week, said Pat Christenson, Las Vegas Events president.
“The destination does not sponsor any of these games,” Christenson told LVSportsBiz.com.
ADVERTISEMENTS
ADVERTISEMENTS
UNLV was among four teams that played in the Roman Main Events at T-Mobile Arena, where Arizona defeated Michigan Sunday. The Maui Invitational, which included Wisconsin, Houston and Saint Mary’s, brought fans to Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena. Annual powerhouse Gonzaga pounded UCLA by 20 points in the Good Sam Empire Classic at T-Mobile Arena Tuesday.
And the Zags are back in action with a roundball one-off showdown with Duke in the Continental Tire Challenge at T-Mobile Arena Friday.
Brooks Downing, the promoter who put together the Roman and Continental Tire tourneys, said Las Vegas is a great destination to stage these college hoops events that feature the sport’s marketable blueblood basketball schools.
While the nationally-televised basketball tournaments are drawing lots of exposure, UNLV, 3-2 after losses to Michigan and Wichita State in the Roman event, played the 1,700-student Whittier College Poets at Thomas & Mack Center on Thanksgiving Eve.
The Running Poets from the Division III school ran out of ink early as the Runnin’ Rebels ran out to a 53-16 lead at halftime. The college with Quaker roots does have a famous alum who know how to take it to the rack, politically speaking of course: former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon class of 1934.
The Rebs lost a heart-breaker to Wichita State when a controversial foul was whistled on UNLV. Coach Kevin Kruger mentioned that in tonight’s postgame comments: “We are proud of the guys for fighting back after a nice kick to the gut the way the game finished on Sunday night (against Wichita State). It was definitely a concern going in because sometimes those hangovers can last a little longer than you want with all the emotion that was in that game.”
The Rebs won, 101-45, in the tune-up for another team from California that comes visiting to Thomas & Mack Center Saturday at 2PM: number two-ranked UCLA Bruins.
The basketball tourneys in Las Vegas are just on element of the Las Vegas sports tourism industry, which is generating hotel room tax revenues in Southern Nevada to help pay the public’s $750 million contribution toward building the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
