TheVegas Showdown, formerly known as theWooden Legacy, is an annual early-season men'scollege basketball competition that began in 2013. It was formerly named in honor of basketball coachJohn Wooden, whoseUCLA Bruins teams won 10 national championships over the 12 seasons from1964 to1975.

The Wooden Legacy was formed in 2013 by a merger between theWooden Classic andDirecTV Classic.^[1] From 2013 through 2019, eight teams competed in the Wooden Legacy in a three-day, 12-game bracketed tournament,^[2] with the games televised on theESPN Networks (ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3). From 2013 to 2016, the first two rounds were played atTitan Gym on the campus ofCal State Fullerton inFullerton, California, and the final day of competition took place at theHonda Center inAnaheim, California.^[1] From 2017 to 2019, all games were played at Titan Gym.^[3]

Beginning in 2020, plans called for the Wooden Legacy to have a two-day, four-team format,^[4] with all games played at theAnaheim Convention Center in Anaheim.^[4] TheCOVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 tournament.^[5] The four-team, two-day tournament format instead debuted in 2021,^[6] with the semifinals and championship game televised by ESPN2 and the third-place game by ESPNU.^[7] The event was renamed to the Vegas Showdown in 2023.^[8]

* – Denotes overtime period

The 2024 edition of the Vegas Showdown was a showcase format, played on Tuesday, November 26 atT-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. As part of the Vegas Showdown, on the weekend following the doubleheader in Las Vegas, Seattle played Duke atCameron Indoor Stadium while Furman traveled to play Kansas atAllen Fieldhouse.^[9]

The tournament took place from November 23–24, 2023 atMichelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas and was renamed Vegas Showdown.^[10]

The 2022 tournament took place November 23 and 24, 2022.^[11]

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Originally,Georgetown,Kansas,UCLA, andVirginia committed to play in the 2020 Wooden Legacy.^[13] In August 2020, thePac-12 Conference announced the cancellation of all sports events for its member schools until January 1, 2021, because of theCOVID-19 pandemic, threatening UCLA's participation; despite this, UCLA never withdrew from the Wooden Legacy.^[14] In the first round, Georgetown was expected to face Kansas and UCLA to play Virginia. In September 2020,ESPN announced plans to move the college basketball nonconference events it planned to run in November and December 2020, including the Wooden Legacy, to theESPN Wide World of Sports Complex atWalt Disney World inOrlando, Florida, in an effort to keep players and staffs safer during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.^[15] The announcement prompted Georgetown and Virginia to withdraw from the tournament, andSeton Hall andBoise State replaced them.^[13] Ultimately, however, ESPN canceled all the 2020 tournaments, including the Wooden Legacy, in late October 2020.^[5]

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• Official website

• College men's basketball competitions in the United States
• Recurring sporting events established in 1994
• 1994 establishments in California

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages using a team bracket with deprecated syntax