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The College Basketball Crown will return to Las Vegas on Wednesday for the second iteration of the postseason tournament, which features a $500,000 NIL prize pool.
Beyond the NIL money up for grabs, this year’s tournament will have some big names in men’s college hoops. Oklahoma, Colorado, Baylor, Minnesota, Stanford, West Virginia, Rutgers and Creighton will all vie for the championship.
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The Nebraska Cornhuskers winning the Crown College Basketball Championship against the UCF Knights at the T-Mobile Arena on April 6, 2025, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
LaPhonso Ellis, a former Notre Dame Fighting Irish star and FOX Sports broadcaster, told Fox News Digital that the Sooners are one of the teams he’s expecting to break out.
“Part of that is when you have to win a tournament like this, you first have to have engagement,” Ellis explained. “I think these guys, having won six out of their last seven and missing (the NCAA Tournament), they have that sour taste in their mouths and you want to go out on a high note.”
Ellis said he expected West Virginia to be with Oklahoma in the final game.
“I have them meeting West Virginia in the finals but I had them having a slight edge 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 over the last couple weeks, it 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 bigger aspects of the tournament.
Sports analyst LaPhonso Ellis during the broadcast before the game between the Maryland Terrapins and the Michigan State Spartans at XFINITY Center on Feb. 29, 2020. (Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports)
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Ellis said that it’s a real incentive for players as they’ve been off the court for a few weeks since missing out on the field of 68 that would have had them competing for a national championship.
“I think it’s very important because when you get to this stage, remember, these teams that go into our tournament, it’s been almost two weeks that they’ve been off from competition and I think you have to have some level of buy-in, and part of that buy-in today has been created. You have NIL, of course, in the shadow, and you’ve got to come up with some real incentive to get these high-brand names in your tournament.”
Last year, the Nebraska Cornhuskers were the tournament champions.
The Fred Hoiberg-led program then parlayed that success into 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 Wednesday and runs through Sunday. The games will be aired on FS1 and FOX.
The opening 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 their 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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The first-round games will take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The rest of the tournament will take place at the T-Mobile Arena.
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