The Vegas 16 tournament was a postseason men's college basketball tournament. The tournament was managed by

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...

-based sports marketing firm bd Global. The tournament featured eight teams not selected for the NCAA Tournament or the NIT. The lone tournament took place March 28–30, 2016, at

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, in

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. The tournament field and seedings were announced after the NCAA Tournament field was revealed. CBS Sports Network was the television partner for the quarters, semis, and finals. Former UNLV and Arizona athletic director

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was the chair of the tournament.

George Raveling George Henry Raveling (born June 27, 1937) is an American former college basketball player and coach. He played at Villanova University, and was the head coach at Washington State University the University of Iowa and the University of Southern ...

Debbie Antonelli Debbie Antonelli is a college basketball analyst who works for ESPN, Big Ten Network, CBS, FOX, and Westwood One. She also does WNBA games for ESPN and NBATV, and has been the main play-by-play voice of the Indiana Fever; since its inception, in ...

, John Balistere and Brooks Downing were on the selection committee.

Concept

The Vegas 16 was inspired by college

bowl game In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivis ...

s, in which the destination was considered as much of a draw as the game itself. In contrast to other unofficial postseason tournaments such as the

College Basketball Invitational The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI s ...

and

CollegeInsider.com Tournament The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) was an American men's college basketball postseason tournament founded by Collegeinsider.com. The tournament was oriented toward schools that did not get selected for the NCAA Division I men's ba ...

(in which the home arenas of higher-ranked teams hosted most of the games), all games in the Vegas 16 were intended to be held in a single location, Las Vegas. The Vegas 16 struggled to gain attention and fill its bracket throughout its existence. A number of schools instituted policies automatically declining invitations to all postseason tournaments other than the NCAA and NIT; the tournament's timing (two weeks after the NCAA and NIT fields were set) also worked against it. Unwilling to fill its field with subpar teams, the Vegas 16, contrary to its name, only filled eight slots in its field in its 2016 tournament and opted not to hold a 2017 tournament at all.

Television

The following is an overview and list of the announcers and television networks to broadcast the Vegas 16 Tournament Championship.

Champions

2016

The inaugural tournament planned on having 16 teams; however, due to many teams forgoing participating in post-season tournaments, only eight teams were selected. The following eight teams participated in the inaugural (and as events would prove, only) tournament: *

East Tennessee State East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a Public university, public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. Although it is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee, the university is governed by an instit ...

Louisiana Tech Louisiana Tech University (Louisiana Tech, La. Tech, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Ruston, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activi ...

Northern Illinois Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. The region is by far the most populous of Illinois with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010. Economics Northern Illinois is dominated by th ...

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

Old Dominion Old Dominion most commonly refers to: *The Old Dominion, a nickname for the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia ** Colony of Virginia *Old Dominion University, a public university in Norfolk, Virginia **Old Dominion Monarchs, the athletic teams represe ...

Tennessee Tech Tennessee Technological University, commonly referred to as Tennessee Tech, is a public research university in Cookeville, Tennessee, United States. It was formerly known as Tennessee Polytechnic Institute, and before that as University of Dixie ...

Towson Towson () is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Baltim ...

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

2017

It was announced on March 9, 2017, that the Vegas 16 tournament would not be held in 2017.

References

{{NCAA men's college basketball tournament navbox Recurring sporting events established in 2016 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2017 College men's basketball competitions in the United States Postseason college basketball competitions in the United States