THANKSGIVING TOURNEY AT UCSD TO HOST HOOP POWERS
Count former San Diego State basketball coach Steve Fisher among those excited to see a Thanksgiving tournament coming to town.
“San Diego is a great basketball city and I definitely see big-time programs wanting to come out and be a part of it,” Fisher said. “What’s not to like?”
Sure enough, UC San Diego’s 4,000-seat LionTree Arena will host the inaugural Rady Children’s Invitational taking place Nov. 2324. The four-team field is a solid one: USC, Iowa, Seton Hall and Oklahoma.
All four games will air live on either Fox or Fox Sports 1. Day 1 matchups and tip times will be announced in coming months and tickets, priced between $35 and $125, will go on sale March 31.
The idea behind the event was hatched by Sports San Diego, the nonprofit organization which runs the annual Holiday Bowl.
A news conference officially announcing the event was held Tuesday morning on the outside deck of Coasterra restaurant on Harbor Drive, a setting that no doubt appealed to fans of Iowa and Seton Hall who may have caught the announcement surrounded by much chillier conditions.
An obvious question: Why aren’t San Diego State, University of San Diego and UCSD involved?
The answer: Because coaches, particularly from power conference programs, want a strictly neutral-court event where they won’t face a partisan home crowd.
The Aztecs have struggled to get nonconference games at Viejas Arena over the years.
However, Fisher said he could see a way around such obstacles for this tournament.
“Say a Michigan comes out and plays one of the locals,” Fisher said. “Maybe the local team just makes a return game the following year to even it out? I could see that kind of conversation taking place in order to maybe get the locals involved at some point.”
The tournament will join a handful of others that have helped make the early portion of the nonconference NCAA basketball schedule so interesting over the years.
The week of this past Thanksgiving produced a slew of televised tournaments with the most highprofile fields participating in the Maui Classic, the Battle 4 Atlantis (Bahamas) and in a pair of Phil Knight/Nike sponsored tournaments in Oregon.
USC and Iowa are slated to be in this year’s NCAA Tournament field while Oklahoma and Seton Hall have traditionally strong programs and also play in major conferences. The committee already has lined up Purdue to be a part of the 2024 field.
“Our plan is to make this the premier Thanksgiving event anywhere,” said Mark Neville, the CEO of the San Diego Bowl Game Association. “We have the city, we have a great venue, we have the television partners and as you can already see, we have interest from some big-time programs.”