For the ninth straight year, the University of Colorado Boulder Men’s Basketball team will be playing a mid-season neutral-court holiday tournament; this year they will compete in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic at the Orleans Arena.

CU will be returning with a loaded roster ready to make a splash in this mid-season tournament. This will be head coach Tad Boyle’s sixth year as head coach of the basketball program. Two returning starters, junior Wesley Gordon (6.3 ppg., 6.5 rpg., 1.4 blk.), who has 88 blocks through two seasons with the Buffs, and senior Josh Scott (12.9 ppg., 7.5 rpg., 1.2 blk.) will be leading the Buffs going into tournament play. Scott and Gordon are the only two players on the Buffs roster who shot over 54% last season.

Past champions of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic include Kansas State (2008), Alabama (2009), New Mexico (2010), Baylor (2011), Colorado State (2012), UNLV (2013) and Loyola, IL (2014).

FOX Sports 1 televises the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic third-place and championship games on Wednesday, Dec. 23, at 7:00 and 9:30 p.m. (MT). Effective this season, FOX Sports assumes control of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic and Las Vegas Invitational, running all aspects of the tournaments, ranging from ticket sales, sponsorships and television production.

Each team will play four games in the Classic – the first two at on-campus sites and the final two rounds at the Orleans Arena, December 22 and 23.

The Classic should not be confused with the similar-sounding Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational, which is also held at the Orleans Arena earlier in the year. This year’s Invitational will be held Nov. 26-27.


Marcus Flowers, a Mile High Sports intern and Claflin University student, contributed to this report