Spartan Basketball Set To Play In PK80

OU was selected for the 16-team event, which is an 80th birthday celebration for Nike co-founder and OR sugar daddy Phil Knight.

Unfortunately, the tournament will consist of two eight-team brackets, so there’s a chance that OU and Texas will be put into separate brackets.

The list of participating teams also includes Arkansas, Butler, Florida, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Portland, Portland State and Stanford. Each team will be guaranteed three games. All games will be televised on ESPN’s family of networks. Thirteen of the schools have made at least one Final Four appearance.

The participating teams have a total of 23 national championships and 89 Final Four between the 16 programs. So when the call comes to play in an early season tournament dedicated to the career of Nike co-founder Phil Knight, you answer.

The tournament will be held in Portland, Oregon over November 23-26, 2017.

“We’ve been fortunate to play in some incredible preseason events, but we’ve never been a part of something this fantastic – both in terms of quantity and quality of the teams”, Izzo said in a release.

The goal was to get the biggest Nike schools all in one place for a significant event and the organizers seem to have done just that.

Matchups and pairings will be released at a later date, but obviously teams from the same conference will placed into different brackets. “PK80 not only brings together some of the top basketball programs in the game, it honors a giant in business and sports”.

“We are very appreciative of our relationship with Phil Knight and Nike”, Shaka Smart said.