The men's basketball heavyweights are running it back in Las Vegas.
Gonzaga and UCLA will face off Nov. 23 in a rematch of last year’s men's Final Four, CBS Sports reports. The game will be played at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, as part of a multi-team event that will also feature Central Michigan and Bellarmine.
The game pits the No. 1 (Gonzaga) and No. 4 (UCLA) teams in Sports Illustrated’s latest preseason top 25 and will likely be the most talked-about nonconference game of the season. The teams’ April matchup in Indianapolis was without a doubt the most memorable of the men's NCAA tournament, as the underdog Bruins matched the undefeated Bulldogs at every turn until Jalen Suggs’s unforgettable banked-in buzzer beater won it in overtime.
Several key players from that showdown return. Suggs will be plying his trade in the NBA by the time the two teams face off in November, but potential National Player of the Year Drew Timme returns for Gonzaga after scoring 25 points and taking a key charge late in regulation in the Final Four matchup. Meanwhile, UCLA returns all five starters from April’s meeting. That includes Johnny Juzang, who poured in a game-high 29 points and elected to return to Westwood earlier this month after testing the NBA draft waters.
The game is among many high-profile nonconference tests for Gonzaga, including a matchup three days later in Las Vegas against Duke and a neutral-site game against Alabama in Seattle. UCLA will face North Carolina in Vegas in December as part of the CBS Sports Classic.
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