Portland To Host Top Nike-Sponsored College Basketball Programs In Phil Knight Invitational

The inaugural Phil Knight Invitational will "bring some of college basketball's most storied programs to Portland" in November '17 for "two side-by-side, eight-team tournaments at the Rose Quarter," according to a front-page piece by Danny Moran of the Portland OREGONIAN. The event, which will "feature 16 Nike-sponsored teams," will also be known as PK80, as it will honor Knight "ahead of his 80th birthday." The "loaded field" should put the event "among the best regular-season college basketball tournaments in history." Games for the two tournaments will be "played at both the Moda Center and Veterans Memorial Coliseum simultaneously." All games will be "televised on ESPN networks, and brackets for the two tournaments are expected to be released" in the spring. All teams are "guaranteed three games," and each team will "play in both arenas." Teams from the same conference "will not be in the same bracket." NCAA rules dictate that multi-team events "can have a maximum of two teams from the same conference." The two teams from the Pac-12 -- Oregon and Stanford -- "both have direct ties to Knight." He received his undergraduate degree from UO and his MBA from Stanford (Portland OREGONIAN, 9/22). In Little Rock, Matt Jones reports Kentucky "previously committed to play in the tournament" in August '12, but has "since backed out." That "opened the door for Arkansas to be the second SEC team in the field," alongside Florida (ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, 9/22).