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The College Basketball Crown will return to Las Vegas on Wednesday for the second edition of the postseason tournament, which features a $500,000 NIL prize pool.
Beyond the NIL money on the line, this year’s tournament will feature some big names in men’s college basketball. Oklahoma, Colorado, Baylor, Minnesota, Stanford, West Virginia, Rutgers and Creighton will compete for the championship.
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The Nebraska Cornhuskers won the Crown College basketball championship against the UCF Knights at T-Mobile Arena on April 6, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
LaPhonso Ellis, former Notre Dame Fighting Irish star and FOX Sports broadcaster, told Pak Gazette Digital that the Sooners are one of the teams he hopes to highlight.
“Part of that is that when you have to win a tournament like this, you have to have commitment first,” Ellis explained. “I think these guys, having won six of their last seven and missing (the NCAA Tournament), have that bitter taste in their mouth and want to go out on a high note.”
Ellis said he expected West Virginia to be with Oklahoma in the final game.
“I had them facing West Virginia in the finals, but they had a slight advantage over West Virginia because West Virginia is really good defensively, one of the top 25 most efficient defenses in the country, but I think in the end, when you have a defense that has improved as much as the senior defense has improved in the last two weeks, it all comes down to your ability to be able to put it in the basket and Oklahoma does that at a high level,” he said.
The NIL prize pool is one of the most important aspects of the tournament.
Sports analyst LaPhonso Ellis during the broadcast before the game between the Maryland Terrapins and the Michigan State Spartans at the XFINITY Center on February 29, 2020. (Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports)
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Ellis said it’s a real incentive for the players since they’ve been off the court for a few weeks since missing the field of 68 that would have allowed them to compete for a national championship.
“I think it’s very important because when you get to this stage, remember, these teams coming into our tournament, it’s been almost two weeks that they’ve been out of the competition and I think you have to have some level of acceptance, and some of that acceptance today has been created. You have NIL, of course, in the shadows, and you have to find some real incentive to include these big brand names in your tournament.”
Last year, the Nebraska Cornhuskers were the tournament champions.
The Fred Hoiberg-led program then built on that success to a 28-7 season in 2025-26. The Cornhuskers made the big dance and lost in the Sweet 16 to Iowa.
The College Basketball Crown begins on Wednesday and runs through Sunday. The games will be broadcast on FS1 and FOX.
The first round matchups are as follows:
- Oklahoma vs. Colorado (April 1, 8 p.m. ET)
- Baylor vs. Minnesota (April 1, 10:30 p.m. ET)
- Stanford vs. West Virginia (April 2, 8 p.m. ET)
- Rutgers vs. Creighton (April 2, 10:30 p.m. ET)
A Nebraska Cornhuskers player places the College Basketball Crown Championship Trophy on Juwan Gary #4 after his team’s 77-66 victory over the UCF Knights in the championship game of the College Basketball Crown tournament at T-Mobile Arena on April 6, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ian Maule/Getty Images)
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First-round games will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The remainder of the tournament will take place at the T-Mobile Arena.
