Players Era Festival Pick. Who will win?

Players Era is a very new college basketball tournament going into its second season and growing from 8 teams to 18. This season there will be 9 ranked teams participating not including last season's champion Oregon. We’re going to be breaking down who we think will come out on top and win this year's tournament. We’ll be looking at how these teams have begun the season and use things such as KenPom to make our pick. 

Why Oregon wouldn’t repeat 

Returning to this season's tournament is Oregon, a team that came out on top in the inaugural Player Era Festival last season. Oregon is currently 4-0 and will have two key returners Nate Bittle and Jackson Shelstad again to try and win it again. The problem with Oregon is their KenPom offense which ranks 87th in the nation. This is the lowest out of all teams in this year's festival with second lowest being San Diego St. at 65th. It's hard to think Oregon will be able to overcome teams that are ranked in the top 15 KenPom offense including Alabama and Gonzaga who are in the top 10. They also aren't elite defensively either, ranking 28th. We are not going with Oregon to repeat in this tournament. 

The Elite Offenses 

There are only two teams that rank top 10 in terms of KenPom offense and they happen to play one another in their first game. Alabama and Gonzaga rank 7 and 8 respectively and seem to be ahead of the pack in offensive efficiency. Alabama has an elite backcourt in Aden Holloway and Labaron Philon Jr. who are coming off of a huge win against Illinois while Gonzaga has an elite frontcourt with Graham Ike and Braden Huff. 

The Elite Defenses 

There are five teams that rank top 10 in KenPom defense. Houston has the number 1 defense in the country but ranks 24th in terms of KenPom offense, much lower than many other teams in the field. Then you have Tennessee who ranks 3rd defensively but 41st offensively. These offenses that are out of the top 20 could see issues upon having to get past some of the countries top scorers also in Vegas this week. Gonzaga is a team that's elite both ways ranking 5th in KenPom defense and 8th offensively. 

We are going with Gonzaga 

Gonzaga is a team that's elite in almost all aspects making us think they're a more clear favorite than maybe expected. The only team ranked higher than them in terms of offense is Alabama by only a single spot. This could easily change as Gonzaga plays Alabama in their first game and we could see Gonzaga’s stiff defense bothering Alabama’s elite backcourt. The only defenses ranked higher than Gonzaga are Houston and Tennessee who are much lower than them offensively.