No. 13 Gonzaga to become reacquainted with No. 11 Alabama’s tempo in Players Era Festival opener
LAS VEGAS – On Saturday night, sports enthusiasts in Las Vegas watched Formula 1 cars howl up and down a street circuit on the famed Strip, regularly topping out at 210-220 mph on straightaways.
It’ll be difficult to measure up to that, but the seventh game of the 2025 Players Era Festival could deliver more of the same neck-bending speed, horsepower and high-octane action that fans got during Saturday’s Grand Prix.
No. 11 Alabama versus No. 13 Gonzaga may not be a race in the literal sense, but a race to 90 or 100 points is entirely on the table in a matchup featuring two of the country’s top 10 offenses and a pair of sport’s brightest coaching minds.
The concise message to anyone planning to attend or tune in to the 6:30 p.m. (TNT) showdown at MGM Grand Garden Arena? Buckle up.
Nate Oats has acquired new players since Alabama (3-1) and Gonzaga (5-0) completed a two-year, neutral-site nonconference series in 2022, but the Crimson Tide haven’t pumped the brakes on the court, playing an up-tempo, high-possession brand of basketball with which Mark Few and the Zags will become reacquainted when they debut in the 18-team NIL tournament on the Vegas Strip.
The Zags have made short work of everyone on their schedule to this point, owning high-major wins over Oklahoma, Creighton and Arizona State, but it’s fair to be skeptical of how those results will age in three to four months’ time.
The Sooners lost a game to Nebraska one week after playing Gonzaga, the Bluejays fell out of the Associated Press Top 25 seven days after their trip to Spokane – and subsequently lost starting forward Jackson McAndrew to a season-ending injury – and the Sun Devils, picked to finish last in the Big 12, had trouble putting away Hawaii on Thursday in Honolulu. None of those three schools currently rank inside the top 50 at KenPom.
The Zags have three quality wins, but none of those tests measure up to the one they’re prepping for on Monday night.
Beating Alabama, which sits No. 17 at KenPom and is likely to climb into the top 10 of the AP poll on Monday, would not only go a long way from a résumé perspective, but validate the Zags in a way other wins haven’t and put them in strong position to reach Wednesday’s championship game in Vegas.
GU is expected to be a considerable favorite in Tuesday’s game against Maryland (4-1) after the Terrapins needed overtime to hold off Mount Saint Mary’s in their final tune-up before Vegas.
“They’re off to an incredible start,” Few said of the Tide. “All of Nate’s teams have been terrific and we’ve had some good battles with them, but this one’s going to be a real big challenge. They looked every bit like a top -five, top -three team the other night when I was watching.”
The Players Era will use a variety of tools including head-to-head record, point differential (up to 20 per game), points scored and points allowed to determine the teams that will play in Wednesday’s championship. Teams received a hefty payout of $1 million just to participate in the tournament and the winner will collect another $1 million check after Wednesday’s title game.
Previous Gonzaga-Alabama matchups might offer some insight as to what fans can expect Monday.
When the Zags and Tide last played in December 2022, Drew Timme had 29 points and Brandon Miller had 36 in a game that featured 190 total points. The year prior, a Jaden Shackelford-led Alabama hung 91 points on Gonzaga in a nine-point victory at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.
In four games this season, the Tide have failed to score 90 points just once and they rank fifth in KenPom’s adjusted tempo category.
So, while it isn’t hard to guess how Alabama will try to win Monday, Oats acknowledged it could be more difficult to establish tempo and pace against a Zags team that’s been disruptive on the defensive end, ranking sixth nationally in field -goal percentage defense (33.3%) and seventh in scoring defense (57.8 points).
“Our guards have been doing a good job of not turning it over. We’ve got to continue to do a great job against come of their aggressive coverages,” Oats said. “They’ve got some defensive playmakers. We’ve got to do a great job of taking care of the basketball and getting a quality shot up on every possession.”
Oats also noted the challenge Gonzaga’s frontcourt presents, referencing a recent podcast he was on with Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, whose top-seeded Cougars edged the Zags 81-76 in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament despite giving up 38 combined points to Graham Ike and Braden Huff.
“He was like, ‘You’ve got (Kevin) McHale and you’ve got (Robert) Parish. That’s a pretty good comparison going back 40 years in the NBA, arguably one of the best frontcourts in the history of basketball and Celtics,’ ” Oats said. “For him to reference that. They can both go score, they both are going to demand double teams.
“When you have both of them it’s like, who do you put your best post defender on? Your second best post defender in the game is going to have to go guard somebody that’s better than almost every team’s best post scorer.”
Similarly, Alabama’s roster has two guards who’d likely be No. 1 scoring options for almost any team in the country. Sophomore Labaron Philon Jr. (20.5 ppg) and junior Aden Holloway (17.7) had 46 points in a 103-96 win over then No. 5 St. John’s and combine to average 9.1 assists. The Tide also rely on Pepperdine transfer Houston Mallette, who averaged 17.1 ppg in six career matchups against Gonzaga.
Former Florida State forward Taylor Bol Bowen is a past teammate of Gonzaga’s Jalen Warley and averages 12.5 ppg to go with 4.3 rpg. Alabama frontcourt mate Noah Williamson was on Bucknell’s roster last season when the Bison traveled to Gonzaga, scoring 16 points in an 86-65 loss.
Nobody on Gonzaga’s roster played in the 2022 matchup with Alabama, but Grand Canyon transfer Tyon Grant-Foster had a previous run-in with an Oats-coached team, scoring 29 points and pulling down eight rebounds during a 72-61 loss to the Tide in a NCAA Tournament Round of 32 game in Spokane.