SAN DIEGO – The inaugural Players Era Festival, which will be contested over Thanksgiving week at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, will undergo a format change following the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee granting a blanket waiver of certain NCAA MTE legislation for the 2024-25 season.
Now operating as a single Multi-Team Event (MTE), the Players Era Festival will maintain the Impact and Power Groups while adding a Championship Day on Saturday, November 30. The tournament’s previously announced Tuesday and Wednesday schedule will become group play, while Saturday’s action will feature to-be-determined matchups across the two groups, with pairings determined by the outcomes of the group play games.
Following Wednesday’s games, each group will be ranked first through fourth, and after head-to-head records, seeding will be determined by total point differential in group games (capped at 20 points per game), based on total points scored and fewest points allowed. The top seeds from each division will face off in the championship game, with the rest of the standings filling out the third, fifth and seventh-place matchups.
San Diego State will open the Players Era Festival with a game at 11 a.m. (PT) on Tuesday, November 26 against Creighton. The game will be broadcast on TBS. The next day, at 1 p.m. (PT) on Wednesday, November 27, SDSU will face off against Oregon which will be shown on MAX. The team’s opponent on Saturday, November 30, will be determined by the criteria previously mentioned.
In 2024-25, San Diego State welcomes back one starter, Reese Waters, from the 2023-24 squad that went 26-11, played for the Mountain West Tournament title for the 10th time in the last 11 seasons, reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year and the fourth time in the last 14 years. In all, the Aztecs return three letterwinners, Byrd, Waters and Miles Heide, and have brought seven newcomers into the fold, featuring Nick Boyd, who transferred from FAU and played in the Final Four against SDSU in 2023, Jared Coleman-Jones, a 6-10 forward, who can score from all three levels, led Middle Tennessee State in assists last season, and was one of seven players his height in the nation to lead his team in assists, and Wayne McKinney III, a San Diego native and 6-0 guard with a 40-plus inch vertical, who is 140 points from 1,000 for his career. In addition, redshirt freshman Magoon Gwath, a 7-0 forward who can score from all levels, true freshman Taj DeGourville, a 6-5 guard with a 7-0 wingspan, and 6-8, 245 pound forward with a 7-4 wingspan Pharaoh Compton, are freshman who are expected to make an immediate impact.
The Aztecs play an exhibition on Wednesday, October 30, against Cal State San Marcos in Viejas Arena and then host its regular-season opener a week later, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, against UC San Diego.