Two teams unbeaten in the tournament find themselves in an unusual situation, relegated to a third-place game, when 17th-ranked Tennessee and Kansas square off on the final day of the big-money Players Era men’s championship on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
The Volunteers (7-0) and Jayhawks (5-2) both won for a second consecutive day in the 18-team event on Tuesday, but they lost out on a point-differential tiebreaker, with Michigan and Gonzaga claiming spots in the Wednesday final.
All four went 2-0 in the tournament. Michigan had the top point differential with +40, followed by Gonzaga at +30, Tennessee at +23 and Kansas at +21. For tiebreaker purposes, the differential was capped at 20 points per game.
Tennessee had wins over Rutgers (85-60) and third-ranked Houston (76-73), while Kansas turned back Notre Dame (71-61) and Syracuse (71-60).
The winner between the Volunteers and Jayhawks will receive $300,000 in name, image and likeness (NIL) contributions, with the loser flying home with $200,000. The tournament champion — either No. 7 Michigan or No. 12 Gonzaga — will receive $1 million, the runner-up $500,000.
Whether they finish third or fourth, the Volunteers have a reason to walk away feeling like winners. Their Tuesday victory over Houston avenged a loss in last year’s Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, a defeat that denied Tennessee a spot in the Final Four and a shot at Duke.
Turns out, the Volunteers had more than just a revenge motivation against Houston. At his postgame press conference, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes insisted his team felt disrespected by its relatively low ranking despite an unbeaten start.
“I’ve heard the chatter that we hadn’t played anybody,” Barnes said. “But we had a great scrimmage against Ohio State and we had a great exhibition game against Duke, and we knew after both of those that if we could continue to grow, that we had a chance.”
Tennessee’s Ja’Kobi Gillespie has been one of the individual stars of the tournament through two games. He followed up a 32-point effort against Rutgers with a team-high 22 against Houston. Gillespie shot a combined 9-for-19 from 3-point range in the two victories.
While the Volunteers try to build upon their impressive 2024-25 season, Kansas has been trying to reinvent itself amid an injury-plagued start. The Jayhawks fell out of the Top 25 following losses to North Carolina and Duke.
Kansas has been without star freshman Darryn Peterson in the tournament, prompting coach Bill Self to try different starting lineups.
Sophomore Jamari McDowell made his first collegiate start in the Tuesday win over Syracuse and contributed nine points, four rebounds and two assists to the win.
The biggest hoop of the game might have been thrown down by Kohl Rosario, who added to his point total as well as to Kansas’ point differential with a dunk in the final seconds.
The two points wound up being the difference as Kansas beat out a fifth 2-0 team, Iowa State (+19), for fourth place by just one otherwise meaningless hoop that earned the school at least $200,000.
Self was unapologetic for “running up the score” when addressing the media afterward.
“The guys were well aware of it,” he said of the tiebreaker. “The point differential doesn’t have anything to do with who’s the better team, but it does have something to do with how the format is set up.”
