Court Report: The million-dollar NIL event worked; Big East's big week; a needed tribute for Lou Carnesecca

One of the buzziest offseason stories was the creation of the Players Era Festival, an eight-team tournament in Las Vegas that would pay each school $1 million to play in three games. 

The idea of its creation sparked tumult across the industry. Speculation and cynicism was rampant that the event's organizers would not only not make money but probably fail to provide all the millions they were pledging to pay out. The multi-team event (MTE) space is one that works on thin margins; the idea that a new group would barge in and be able to offer $9 million in rewards (winning teams would get extra) was so bold as to be borderline unbelievable to many in the college sports space. 

Nevertheless, the Players Era Festival did go on as planned. If you missed it, or didn't realize what you watched was the tournament handing out all that money, that's maybe the only problem in its first foray. Oregon (8-0) beat Alabama (6-2) in Saturday night's championship game at MGM Grand Arena in front of a just-OK crowd. The game aired on TNT.

"It was better than we thought but not as good as we had hoped," tournament director and former AND1 CEO Seth Berger told CBS Sports about the attendance. "For some of the games, it felt like the arena was packed. it was loud. Rutgers-San Diego State and Houston-Alabama. Creighton fans traveled as well. Half the games, it was pretty good."

Berger said due to finalizing a broadcast partner in late summer, they knew having the final day be Saturday (up against the final regular-season day of college football) would impact the event's reach. Other than that, the tourney exceeded expectations, with 11 of the 12 games being close. There were three overtime affairs and five games decided by five points or fewer. In going 3-0, Oregon won $500,000 in NIL money, while Alabama was awarded a bonus $250,000, San Diego State an additional $150,000 and Houston $100,000. Those four schools, plus Creighton, Notre Dame, Rutgers and Texas A&M will all be paid $1 million Thursday, Berger said.

That moment will be an affirming one for the event's organizers. A lot of people dismissed the possibility of every school being paid what was promised.

"On Thursday when the money gets wired, everyone's gonna be, 'Wow, didn't expect this to happen,'" Berger said. 

Production company EverWonder put up the majority of the $8 million, in addition to moneys from sponsorships that went into escrow on Oct. 25. Berger and EverWonder Studios CEO Ian Orefice said they will come close to breaking even thanks to deals with Warner Bros. Discovery, MGM, Eli Lilly, Starbucks and Dick's Sporting Goods. The players all engaged in NIL-qualifying activities on the Monday before the tournament began in order to be paid out legally under NCAA rules. The schools' NIL collectives will distribute the funds as they see fit.

"The NIL content creation went smoother than expected and the brands are really happy with the content they got," Berger said. "The proof of concept here is the NCAA has given us a road map for how event operators can create NIL opportunities for players. We created a road map and it worked."

The Players Era tournament drew in multiple refs who had worked Final Fours. Media attendance was fairly good as well. All the teams stayed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, with all meals and hotel rooms provided free of charge — a stark contrast from the heavy bill that comes with the prestige of getting an invite to play in the biggest November tournament of them all, the Maui Invitational. 

"My phone was literally blowing off the hook with teams that want to get in," Berger said. "There were teams reaching out to me, from other MTEs next year."

The coaches who participated this year were plenty satisfied with the experience.

"I know there's a lot of questions about this tournament going in from the national media," Creighton's Greg McDermott said. "I think you try to put something new together that's unique, and we were really excited to be part of it, and we're excited to be part of it moving forward in the future. I think all the questions were certainly answered. I think they knocked it out of the park with the way this event was run and organized. From my perspective, I've been doing this 36 years, I'd have never, ever guessed this was the first year of an event the way that it was pulled off. Kudos to Intersport and everybody else that put this together. It was great."

"Seth and his group, we get there and the MGM was great to us," Oregon's Dana Altman told CBS Sports. "The food was great, they got high-level officials, which all of us wanted. We were treated great. I don't have any complaints, other than I mentioned to Seth, the two days off. I talked to the guys, I talked to Kelvin (Sampson) and Nate (Oats) and that was too much to be there." 

Berger said next year's Players Era will start Monday of Thanksgiving week and end that Friday. And it won't be an eight-team field. It will be 16 -- at least. Going for at least 20 is also under consideration, with the format potentially including World Cup-esque group-stage play. Players Era has already announced the same eight teams from 2024 to be involved in 2025 in addition to newcomers Baylor, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Michigan, St. John's, Saint Joseph's and Syracuse. Another big-name school is being heavily courted, one source said, but that deal is still not certain. Another school, based on the East Coast, recently opted out after inspecting the contract terms, according to a source.

"No one thought we could pull this off, and in fairness to them, there was a lot of good reasons for skepticism," Berger said. "Now that we have pulled it off, the question is how big of an impact can we have in the game. It certainly will be at least as big as we had planned if not bigger."

Berger said he hopes to have all the details of 2025's event publicly revealed by the end of February.

Wednesday's sked is stacked; here's what to know

A reminder that the ACC/Big Ten Challenge is no more because ESPN no longer has a TV deal with the Big Ten, so we are now in the era of the ACC/SEC Challenge. This is Year 2; the leagues tied 7-7 a year ago, but the SEC is gonna cruise this year. The series got underway on Tuesday with Kentucky winning at Clemson, Tennessee blowing out Syracuse and Louisville beating Ole Miss. 

Tonight is where it's at, a stacked schedule headlined by No. 2 Auburn at No. 9 Duke and No. 5 Marquette at No. 6 Iowa State (that one being part of the Big East/Big 12 Challenge). 

Also on the docket:

No. 15 Baylor @ No. 25 UConn, 6:30 ET on FS1 (I'll be there)
Ohio State @ Maryland, 6:30 ET on Big Ten Network
No. 10 Alabama @ No. 20 North Carolina, 7:15 ET on ESPN
No. 1 Kansas @ Creighton, 8:30 ET on FS1
No. 18 Pitt @ Mississippi State, 9:15 ET on SEC Network

Sweet slate for college hoopheads. If it's felt to you like we've consistently been gifted a high rate of compelling matchups between good teams through the first month of the season, guess what? You're right. Marquette-Iowa State and Auburn-Duke brings us to six top-10 affairs through the first month of the season, meaning we're averaging more than one top-10 matchup per week. With the likes of Baylor-UConn and Bama-UNC also involved, we've had 23 ranked-on-ranked games overall this season, equating to more than four ranked-on-ranked games per week so far.

Big week for Big East

It's a good thing this week is so loaded with opportunities for the Big East, because the league needs to take advantage across the board. We saw it on Tuesday night with Villanova and Providence beating Cincinnati and BYU, respectively. Prior to Tuesday, the conference had been lacking through the first 30 days of the season, going a collective 64-22 and missing an abundance of quality victories. This is all the more pressing after the league only managed to send three teams to last season's Big Dance.

The NET rankings made their public debut Monday, and the Big East only had one team in the top 35: Marquette (No. 6). As of today, Xavier, Georgetown and Seton Hall are all outside the top 100, with Creighton, Providence and Villanova sitting below 80th.

The league has only five Quad 1 wins (4-8), three of which belong to the league's only undefeated team, Marquette, and is an uninspiring 6-6 in Quad 2 games. Even the teams with nice records have résumés with issues. 

• Butler is 7-1 but outside the top 40 in every mainstream predictive metric 
• Xavier is 7-1 but doesn't have a top-65 KenPom win
• St. John's is 6-2 but doesn't have a top-55 win

Meantime, the bad ...

• UConn went 0-3 in Maui and, leading into tonight's Baylor game, only has wins vs. Quad 4 teams
• Providence went 0-3 in the Bahamas and is 6-3 (necessary home win over BYU Tuesday)
• Creighton is 5-3 and doesn't have a top-80 win heading into tonight's game vs. Kansas
• Villanova is 5-4 and just got its first top-250 KenPom win Tuesday 
• Seton Hall is 4-4 with losses to Fordham, Hofstra and Monmouth, which was 0-8 and 304th at KenPom before beating the Hall 

Connecticut, Creighton, Seton Hall, Villanova and Xavier have slipped between least 25 and 40 KenPom spots from where they were on the opening day of the season.

Now, the ACC ranks even lower than the Big East at KenPom, but that's due to having 18 teams vs. the Big East's 11. Plus, the ACC had teams win MTEs last week in Boston College, Clemson and SMU. It also has four top-30 teams, whereas the Big East currently has ... one. In an era of 16/18-team megaconferences, an 11-school high-major league should probably never be worse than third in strength on account of not having a glut of low-end programs. Nevertheless, the Big East has been below its standard, and its schools need to change the pattern ASAP with the opportunities provided this week.

Coaches should don sweaters for Looie

Legendary St. John's coach Lou Carnesecca died Saturday at 99. He's on the short list, certainly in the top five, of the best men's Division I coaches to never win an NCAA title. Looie coached St. John's for 24 seasons and won 526 games, never suffering a sub-.500 season or anything close to it. He's one of the most important figures in the history of the Big East and his personality shined bright both during his coaching days after well after. 

He unintentionally developed a trademark in the later days of his career when he took his wife's advice and started to wear sweaters during games after developing a terrible cold. Superstition took hold: St. John's went on a long winning streak after Carnesecca started wearing a Chevron-patterned sweater. He expanded his wardrobe as the 1980s went on, and it became a thing.

I can think of no better tribute than for all coaches in the Big East -- and beyond that would be cool, too -- to break out the most absurd sweater they own (or give a manager a $100 bill and go have them find one) to wear this week. It would make for such a great visual. Surely, Rick Pitino has to do it, right? I need to see the tackiest designs imaginable. Do it for Looie!

@ me

The Court Report's weekly mailbag is back! Find me on Bluesky or  X/Twitter and drop a Q anytime.

Maui was a dream assignment for me; I'm so happy I got to check it off my list. It's a place every college basketball writer should experience at least once. As for your Q, Tyler, all eight were well represented. If I was judging on the most consistently passionate, loudest and most "extra" fan bases, I would rank the top three:

1. Iowa State
2. Auburn
3. North Carolina (barely beating Dayton)

Hopefully Maui can continue to be a premier annual event, but as I wrote a few days ago, that is no guarantee to happen.

The greatest nonconference rivalry in college basketball is Kentucky-Louisville. Kentucky is known primarily for three things: its horses, bourbon and basketball. I say you get one of those bourbon barrels, emblazon two horses on it -- with one side UK blue and the other Louisville red -- then roll it out onto the court after the winner is decided each year. Have a little nub on top fastened to hold the basketball that gets painted with the game results. Have Woodford Reserve or Maker's Mark sponsor it. Why wasn't this done decades ago? 

Utah State is 7-0, but every other Mountain West team has at least two losses to this point with the league pacing the Big East's Quad 1 and Quad 2 win totals. The MW probably can't do again, ever, what it did in 2024 when it landed six teams in the NCAAs, but it can still have a pretty strong year. I think the ceiling is four and I think the chances it matches or slightly bests the Big East's output is between 30-35%.

The SEC is comfortably the best league this season at this stage. Put me down for at least two SEC teams to be 4/5-seeds on Selection Sunday. The most likely candidate is Texas.

I mean, Hurley is getting Baylor in Storrs tonight, and UConn's working on a home-and-home that will be really good if it materializes. Buy games are a part of college basketball. They are home-gate revenue that athletic departments need and coaches are going to work in five, six or seven easier opponents to offset the tougher games early in the year. Fortunately, we get just enough good games in this stretch that there aren't too many nights in college basketball where it's outright terrible. 

This is the reality of the college sports fan. It won't be changing. Some fans will watch their teams on six or seven different broadcasts in one season. It's not fun, and the cable bundle business model is gone almost certainly forever. But that is a wild viewing guide for the best team in the Big East.

You'd get no pushback from me, but keep in mind that ~85% of a given TV audience has no idea what KenPom is, and 95% or more has never heard of BartTorvik.com. Those rankings are more empirical than a human poll, but most people just want to watch the game and not be overloaded with data and info anyway. The AP rankings will continue to be TV's scorebug reference point because they always have been and the polls still mean something to fans, programs and broadcast partners. 

Norlander's news + nuggets

• Dylan Harper has a good case to edge out Cooper Flagg as the nation's top freshman through the first four weeks. Harper is third nationally in scoring at 23.8 points, in addition to 4.6 assists and 4.5 rebounds. He's got two games of 35-plus points already. Rutgers is 5-3 and needs to minimally split its next two (at Ohio State, vs. Penn State) to keep hope alive that this team can be in the NCAA Tournament.         
• After going 7-0 over the past four weeks, Kansas owns a 42-5 record in November since 2017, the best mark in college basketball in that category. And it's not like Bill Self's loading up on cupcakes. That's a crazy record.
• Houston doesn't face a top-50 KenPom team for the next month, so now's the time to bring this up: The Cougars are 4-3 and the best team they've beaten is Notre Dame. Losses are to SDSU, Auburn and Bama. Haven't lost three games this early into a season ever under Kelvin Sampson. Jamal Shead is sorely missed. But I think they work it out and still finish top-three in the Big 12.
• Louisville's first season under Pat Kelsey might be a wash. The Cards (5-3) got rocked at home to Mississippi on Tuesday, with that result coming after the news that fifth-year senior forward Kasean Pryor is done for the season due to an ACL tear and Koren Johnson is redshirting because of a shoulder issue. This team still doesn't have Aboubacar Traore either, who is expected to sit at least another three weeks after breaking his arm in the fall.
• Alabama was a preseason top-three team, but the Tide (6-2) haven't hit top gear yet. A big part of that is All-American Mark Sears is shooting 42.9% from 2 and 28.8 from 3, in addition to averaging 16.6 ppg, 3.6 apg, 3.3 rpg and 1.0 spg — all of those numbers down from last season. Toss in Latrell Wrightsell Jr. being done with an Achilles injury and transfer Chris Youngblood still yet to debut because of preseason ankle surgery, it's been tougher than anticipated for Nate Oats' program, but consider this: No team has played tougher defense overall. 

• More injury news: Syracuse star guard JJ Starling is out for the foreseeable future due to a left hand injury, the school announced. That's one the Orange can ill afford. SU lost Tuesday night at Tennessee 96-70.
• One month into the season, how have the national title futures odds changed? We get the top two playing each other tonight. The top three are now Auburn then Duke then Gonzaga, according to BetOnline.ag. Auburn was 25/1 in the preseason and is now 7/1.
• Speaking of Auburn, for the second time this season, we could have a college basketball team encountering trouble due to an altercation on an airplane. KOB4 reports this alleged incident happened with New Mexico's program, apparently between a scholarship player and a walk-on.  
• Some applause for the Oklahoma Sooners, who are 8-0, won the Battle 4 Atlantis and handled Georgia Tech on Tuesday. This team was picked 15th in a 16-team SEC. Porter Moser missed on a lot of targets in the portal, but getting freshman guard Jeremiah Fears has been massive. He's averaged better than 18 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals over the past four games and has been a top-10 frosh in the nation this season.   
• Keep an eye out on Rhode Island. This is Year 3 for Archie Miller and he's got the Rams off to their first 8-0 start since 1947-48. A home game against hated Providence awaits on Saturday. A win in that spot could put Rhody into the rankings for the first time since 2018.