What to know, how to watch: Notre Dame men’s basketball in Players Era Festival

After an encouraging 4-0 start, Notre Dame men’s basketball let the air out of the balloon. For now.

The Irish lost to Elon 84-77 on Friday, falling to a team picked 12th in the Coastal Athletic Association.

“Our defense let us down today,” Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said after the game.

However, the Irish have a chance to put the air back in the balloon this week as they enter the heart of their non-conference schedule. They flew to Las Vegas on Sunday for the Players Era Festival, a first-of-its-kind “NIL-driven” multi-team event (MTE) in which they’ll face three quality opponents.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Players Era Festival.

Notre Dame in Players Era Festival game information

• Teams: Notre Dame (4-1, 0-0 ACC) vs. Rutgers (4-1, 0-0 Big Ten), No. 6 Houston (3-1, 0-0 Big 12) and TBD
• Possible third opponents: San Diego State, No. 21 Creighton, RV Oregon and No. 20 Texas A&M
• Dates: Tuesday, Nov. 26 (Rutgers); Thursday, Nov. 28 (Houston); Saturday, Nov. 30 (TBD)
• Times: 10:30 p.m. ET (Rutgers); 12:30 a.m. ET (Houston); TBA (TBD)
• Location: MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Television: TBS
• Radio: 960 WSBT-AM in South Bend

How the ‘NIL-driven’ Players Era Festival works

Tournament format

Eight teams will head to Las Vegas for the MTE, and they’re split into two groups of four. Notre Dame’s group, the “Impact Group,” also includes Rutgers, Houston and Alabama. The other group the “Power Group,” contains Oregon, San Diego State, Texas A&M and Creighton.

Each team plays against two of the three other teams in its group, with Game 1 on Tuesday and Game 2 on Wednesday. After Game 2, each group will be seeded 1-4 based on record, with the tiebreakers being 1) Head to head, 2) Point differential, with a cap of plus or minus 20 points per game, 3) Total points scored and 4) Total points allowed.

On Saturday, the No. 1 seed in the Impact Group will face the No. 1 seed in the Power Group in the first-place game. The No. 2 seeds and each group will go head to head in the third-place game, and so on and so forth.

NIL aspect

This is why Notre Dame withdrew from its original MTE, the Rady Children’s Invitational in San Diego.

Each team will receive $1 million in Name, Image and Likeness money for participating in the Players Era Festival, with an extra $500k for the champion.

If that sounds like pay for play, it is, and yes, pay for play is still technically against NCAA rules. But the Players Era Festival gets around that and is NCAA-compliant. Per The Associated Press, “players must appear at ancillary events [throughout the week in Las Vegas] in order to receive NIL money.”

Matchup notables

Rutgers

• The Scarlett Knights are coming off a shocking loss of their own. Rutgers traveled to Kennesaw State as 12.5-point a 12.5-point favorite and lost 79-77 after a last-second turnover from freshman forward Ace Bailey.

• Despite the gaffe — which ended of a game in which the Scarlett Knights trailed by as many as 21 early in the second half — Bailey has been everything Rutgers thought he would be when it signed him as the unanimous No. 2 player in the country. The 6-foot-10 forward is averaging 19.0 points and 5.7 rebounds per game so far.

• Bailey joined combo guard Dylan Harper — the near-unanimous No. 3 player in the 2024 class (ESPN has him at No. 4) — in an all-time great recruiting class for the Scarlett Knights. Harper is the son of Ron Harper, who won three NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls, and the brother of ex-Rutgers star Ron Harper Jr. He’s averaging 19.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game this season.

• Notre Dame and Rutgers share a problem as of later: rebounding. The Scarlett Knights were out-rebounded 54-33 and allowed 20 offensive boards at Kennesaw State.

Houston

• As always, Houston’s defense is phenomenal. The Cougars allow fewer points per game (50.8) than anyone in the nation, nearly 3 full points ahead of No. 2 (Providence at 53.6).

• The Cougars also feature an extremely balanced offensive attack, with eight players averaging between 7.5 and 11.8 points per game. They’re also a veteran team, led by senior forward J’Wan Roberts, junior guard Emanuel Sharp and graduate student guard L.J. Cryer.

• Cryer is an elite three-point shooter, never shooting below 38 percent from beyond the arc in a season since his freshman year. Sharp, though, is making threes a truly unheard-of rate. He’s 11-of-15 so far this season, good for 73.3 percent.