Schedule Set for Players Era Men’s Championship

(Courtesy / UT Athletics)

Schedule Set for Players Era Men’s Championship

Posted on July 1, 2025

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Players Era, an EverWonder Studio company, revealed Tuesday the schedule for the 2025 Players Era Men’s Championship.

The 18-team event, held in Las Vegas, will run from Nov. 24-27. All matchups for the first two days of action are officially set.

Tennessee will play in the opening game of the tournament with a Nov. 24 contest at 1 p.m. ET against Rutgers. It will face Houston the next day at 6 p.m. ET in its second of three contests.

Results from the first two games will determine when, where and against whom each team plays on either Nov. 26 or 27.

The Volunteers are 2-0 all-time against Rutgers, including 1-0 on a neutral floor, but the sides have not met in 33 years. Tennessee collected an 87-79 road win on Nov. 19, 1992, in the NIT Season Tip-Off. The only other meeting came in the postseason, with the Volunteers earning a 67-51 triumph on March 14, 1969, in the NIT opening round in New York City.

Tennessee owns a 3-3 record against Houston, including 0-2 at neutral sites, with the lone meeting this century coming just last season; the Volunteers fell, 69-50, in a March 31 matchup in Indianapolis in the Elite Eight. The teams also met twice in Dec. 1970, once in Dec. 1971, once in Dec. 1994 and once in Dec. 1995.

The Volunteers have played four prior games in the state of Nevada, all in Las Vegas. They went 0-2 at the 1977 Rebel Roundup, dropping a 92-86 decision on Dec. 20 to Iowa and then a 93-86 result versus Northwestern the next day. The program also played in the 1982 Las Vegas Classic, notching a 50-42 win over San Jose State on Dec. 28 before coming up short, 70-54, in a top-15 road matchup versus UNLV the next day.

In total, Tennessee possesses a 15-13 all-time record in the Pacific Time Zone. Its only such affair in the last 15 seasons (2010-25) came on Dec. 19, 2015, against Gonzaga in the neutral-site Battle for Seattle, with the Bulldogs claiming a 76-67 victory.
Specific game locations and television network designations for the Players Era Men’s Championship will be announced later.

To keep up with the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team on social media, follow @Vol_Hoops on Instagram and X/Twitter, as well as /tennesseebasketball on Facebook.

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