Wichita State men’s basketball in loaded Las Vegas tournament field in November 2021
The Shockers are headed to Vegas to open up the 2021-22 college basketball season.
According to a signed agreement that was made available via an open records request, the Wichita State men’s basketball team will play in the MGM Resorts Main Event tournament at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas this November. The other teams are the Arizona Wildcats, Michigan Wolverines and the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels.
The games in Las Vegas will be played on Friday, Nov. 19 and Sunday, Nov. 21 with the pairings, including game times, to be announced no later than Sept. 1. According to the event’s website, tickets go on sale on March 15.
Before the four teams head to Vegas, they will play two additional games as part of the event. According to the agreement, schools will pay the event managers a sum of $180,000 for the event to find two opponents to play at their home arenas. These games will occur on either Friday, Nov. 12, Sunday, Nov. 14 or Tuesday, Nov. 16.
This is similar to what WSU did when it played in the 2019 Cancun Challenge, as the Shockers played Tennessee Martin and Gardner Webb at Koch Arena before heading to Cancun and ultimately falling to West Virginia in the championship game.
The field in Las Vegas figures to be one of the stronger tournaments played in November. Michigan (16-1) is currently ranked No. 3 in the country, while Arizona (15-8) is a traditional power and UNLV (10-11) will be trying to take off in the third year under T.J. Otzelberger and with Wichita native Caleb Grill.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 3:41 PM.
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