Acrisure Arena to host Thanksgiving college basketball game between Michigan State and Arizona
Tim Leiweke, the CEO of Oak View Group which owns Acrisure Arena, hinted last November at a "major college basketball game" being played in the desert.
That hint is now a reality. It was announced Monday that two college basketball heavyweights, the University of Arizona and Michigan State University, will play each other on Thanksgiving Day at the 10,000-seat Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, California in a game being called "The Acrisure Classic."
The game will be at 1:30 p.m. and televised nationally by FOX, following the Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers football game.
The Acrisure Classic will include both Arizona and Michigan State playing a home game against yet-to-be-named opponents in the first round before traveling to the Palm Springs area desert for the Thanksgiving game.
Tickets for the Acrisure Classic go on sale at 10 a.m. PT Wednesday, May 17 and will be available at the Acrisure Arena box office, online at acrisurearena.com and ticketmaster.com and at the Michigan State and Arizona ticket offices.
Arizona finished second in the Pac-12 this year to UCLA, before beating UCLA to win the Pac-12 Tournament. However, the Wildcats were a surprise first-round loser in the NCAA Tournament as a 2-seed, falling to 15-seed Princeton.
Michigan State, a 7-seed in the NCAA Tournament, advanced to the Sweet 16 before losing to Kansas State. The Spartans return multiple starters from that team and have a celebrated incoming freshman class.
Both teams are expected to be highly ranked entering next season. ESPN college basketball reporter Jeff Borzello in his "Way Too Early Top 25" has Michigan State as the No. 4-ranked team and Arizona as No. 24. CBS Sports' Gary Parrish has Michigan State as the No. 8-ranked team entering the season and Arizona at No. 21. ESPN's Joe Lunardi's projected 2024 NCAA bracket has Michigan State as a No. 1 seed and Arizona as a No. 5 seed.
There is a logical connection between Acrisure Arena and Michigan State basketball. Greg Williams, the CEO of Acrisure, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Insurance Company, is a big donor to Michigan State athletics and is friendly with long-time Michigan State coach Tom Izzo.
Acrisure Arena, which opened in December of 2022, is the home of the American Hockey League's Coachella Valley Firebirds, an affiliate of the NHL's Seattle Kraken. The arena is located in Palm Desert, one of the cities that make up the Coachella Valley, the most famous of which is Palm Springs.
In November, speaking to 300 Coachella Valley Firebirds hockey season ticket holders, Leiweke said, "Next year after we get a full year under our belt, we have two top-25 college basketball teams that have committed and we'll be announcing that soon for the fall." At the same time, Leiweke teased an NBA exhibition game and an NHL preseason game involving the Kraken are also planned for the Arena this fall.
There has never been a basketball game played at Acrisure Arena with the exception of a visit by the Harlem Globetrotters in February.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Michigan State, Arizona to play Thanksgiving college basketball at Acrisure Arena
