Saturday hoops in Las Vegas: the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels host the UTRGV Vaqueros on Saturday, November 28, 2026, at the Thomas & Mack Center, with tip-off at 12:00 PM Pacific, according to UNLV’s official schedule. The noon start makes this the opening act of a packed Las Vegas sports day.
It is quite a day, in fact: the Rebels tip at noon on campus while the Vegas Golden Knights host Montreal at T-Mobile Arena at 1:00 PM and the Players Era championship game closes the night at Michelob ULTRA Arena. Fans who plan it right can catch college basketball at lunch and still make an evening game. The UTRGV game is part of UNLV’s late-November nonconference run, a stretch the Rebels use to settle their rotation before December’s marquee dates.
Date, time and game details
What: UNLV Rebels vs UTRGV Vaqueros — men’s college basketball
When: Saturday, November 28, 2026, at 12:00 PM Pacific
Where: Thomas & Mack Center, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154
The listing comes from the official UNLV men’s basketball schedule, which lists the game with a 12:00 PM PT tip and MW+ listed for coverage. UTRGV — the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, out of Edinburg, Texas — makes the trip west for a buy-game that is rarely as simple as it looks on paper: the Vaqueros play fast, press, and shoot a volume of threes that can keep them in games.
About the matchup
For UNLV, the keys are the ones that decide every November home game: defend without fouling, handle pressure without turnovers, and turn stops into transition points, where this roster is at its best. UTRGV will try to muck up the tempo with full-court pressure and quick-trigger shooting, forcing the Rebels to execute in the half court. The noon tip in a holiday-weekend building can start sleepy — the team that brings its own energy usually controls the first ten minutes, and the Rebels’ depth should tell over forty minutes.
The venue
The Thomas & Mack Center, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154, sits on the UNLV campus just east of the Strip and seats roughly 18,000 for basketball. Opened in 1983, it remains one of college basketball’s great home floors — the site of the 1990 national champions’ best nights — with the student section close to the court and the whole building a short rideshare from any Strip hotel.
Tickets
Tickets are sold through UNLV’s official athletics channels at unlvrebels.com. The official schedule does not publish a single fixed price — tickets are priced by section, with the total shown at checkout. Holiday weekend afternoon games are popular with local families, and the lower bowl is the place to be for a noon tip.
Getting to the Thomas & Mack Center
The arena is at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154, at Tropicana Avenue on the UNLV campus. Free and paid surface parking surrounds the building on game days, and the drive from the Strip takes about ten minutes. RTC buses serve Maryland Parkway and Tropicana, rideshare drop-offs run along the arena’s east side, and doors typically open about an hour before tip-off — plan to be inside by 11:30 AM for a noon game.
More Las Vegas events
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Make a day of it
A noon finish leaves the whole day open: the Golden Knights matinee against Montreal is at 1:00 PM across town for the truly ambitious, the Players Era title game tips at 7:30 PM, and the campus location puts you minutes from the Strip’s dining scene either way. Scarlet and gray at lunch, then the city is yours.