The Acrisure Invitational, a new multi-day college basketball tournament will be headlined on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2023, with a nationally-televised game featuring Michigan State and Arizona. The headline game, the Acrisure Classic, will air live on FOX following the Detroit Lions game against the Green Bay Packers.
The Acrisure Classic, the final round of the Acrisure Invitational, will we played at Acrisure Arena in Greater Palm Springs, Calif. The matchup of two of the premier programs in college basketball will be the first college basketball game played at Southern California’s newest world-class venue, Acrisure Arena, which opened in December 2022. The Spartans and the Wildcats will tip off at 1:30 p.m. PST (4:30 p.m. EST) on Thanksgiving Day. The tournament is sponsored by Acrisure, the global fintech leader.
Tickets for the final round of the Acrisure Classic go on sale Wednesday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) and will be available at the Acrisure Arena box office, online at acrisurearena.com and Ticketmaster.com, the official ticketing provider of Acrisure Arena, and at the Michigan State and Arizona ticket offices.
Arizona is led by head coach Tommy Lloyd, who boasts an NCAA record 61 wins over his first two years in Tucson and back-to-back Pac-12 Tournament titles. The up-tempo style of play that Lloyd brought to the desert has seen Arizona lead the country in assists over the last two years while scoring 83 points per game. The Wildcats will return one of the top big men in the country in first team All Pac-12 center Oumar Ballo, who averaged 14.2 points and 8.6 rebounds while shooting 64.7% from the field last season, the eighth-best percentage in all of college basketball. Also back is Pelle Larsson, a do-it-all wing who averaged 9.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists while shooting 83.5% at the free throw line on more than 130 attempts. Rising sophomore point guard Kylan Boswell will lead the backcourt after garnering Pac-12 All-Freshman team honors in his debut season.
Michigan State finished the 2022-23 season with a 21-13 overall record, including an 11-8 mark in the Big Ten Conference, and was selected to play in the NCAA Tournament for the 25th-straight season, the second-longest active streak in Division I men’s basketball. The Spartans won a pair of games in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Sweet 16 for the 15th time under Head Coach Tom Izzo. The Spartans return guard Tyson Walker, an All-Big Ten Second Team selection, fifth year forward Malik Hall and several key letter winners as well as welcoming one of the nation’s top recruiting classes.
FOX national network will broadcast the game following the Detroit lions on Thanksgiving Day. Each team will play two games in the Classic, the first on-campus, with the final round at the Acrisure Arena on November 23.
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