Neither took the easy route, but Aurora Gaming and Natus Vincere are the last two teams standing at the ESL Pro League Season 23 Main Event at Stockholm.

Natus Vincere opened Saturday’s semifinals with a 2-1 win over FUT Esports, with Aurora following with its own 2-1 win, against Astralis.

The eight-team Counter-Strike: Global Offense event features a $275,000 prize pool. The single-elimination bracket consisted of best-of-three matches until Sunday’s grand final, which will be best-of-five. The championship side will receive $100,000.

Natus Vincere’s semifinal win was noteworthy in that the Ukrainian outfit was the last of the eight teams to advance to the main event out of online qualifying. After opening Saturday’s match with a 13-5 win on Mirage, Natus Vincere lost 13-11 on Ancient as FUT forced a winner-take-all third map. Natus Vincere took the map — 13-7 on Dust II — to advance and relegate FUT to Sunday’s third-place match.

Natus Vincere 67 kills and a plus-30 kill-death differential from Romanian Mihai “iM” Ivan. Drin “makazze” Shaqiri of Kosovo netted 51 kills. Romania’s Laurentiu “lauNX” Tarlea had 44 kills but a minus-4 differential as no FUT member had a positive differential.

Aurora, like Natus Vincere was one of the sixth- through eighth-place teams from the online tournament. Aurora had an even more difficult time in the semis, losing 13-11 on Nuke to open the match against Astralis. That forced Aurora in need of a reverse sweep in order to make the grand final … which they got, winning 13-2 on Dust II and 13-10 on Inferno.

Ali “Wicadia” Haydar Yalcin led the all-Turkish Aurora squad with 57 kills and a plus-21 K-D differential. Love “phzy” Smidebrant of Sweden led Astralis with 41 kills but had a minus-6 differential. Victor “Staehr” Staehr of Denmark had 39 kills and a plus-2 differential — the only Astralis player in the black — in the loss.

ESL Pro League Season 23 Main Event schedule

Sunday

–Astralis vs. FUT Esports (third-place match)

–Aurora Gaming vs. Natus Vincere (grand final)

ESL Pro League Season 23 prize pool

1. $100,000

2. $55,000

3. $37,500

4. $22,500

5-8. $15,000 — Team Spirit, Legacy, The MongolZ, MOUZ

–Field Level Media

NASHVILLE — No. 22 Vanderbilt will try to win its first Southeastern Conference tournament championship since 2012 when it meets 17th-ranked Arkansas on Sunday.

The Commodores (26-7), playing two miles from their campus, routed fourth-ranked Florida (the tournament’s top seed) by a 91-74 score on Saturday, snapping the Gators’ 12-game winning streak.

“Proud of the guys,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said afterward. “Not really much celebrating. It’s on to Sunday, and that’s what we started this tournament for, is to play for a trophy on Sunday, and that’s what we have a chance to do tomorrow.”

Vanderbilt enters on a four-game winning streak, none of those wins coming on its campus.

Arkansas (25-8) has also won four straight, surviving in a 93-90 overtime win over Ole Miss to get here.

It’ll be the third game in three days for both teams, and Arkansas coach John Calipari was particularly perturbed about tournament scheduling on Friday evening.

After beating Oklahoma in a game that ended around 11:30 p.m. Central on Friday, Calipari lamented a Sunday tip-off that comes less than 19 hours after Arkansas finished off the Rebels.

Vanderbilt knows something about overcoming difficult circumstances lately.

The Commodores struggle against teams with size and rebounding, but in their last three games have knocked off the nation’s top offensive rebounding team in Tennessee (twice) and then clocked the Gators, who rank second.

Vanderbilt was beaten on the glass by Tennessee by counts of 40-31 and 46-34, and then 38-23 by Florida.

But neither team could come close to matching Vanderbilt’s guard play of Tyler Tanner (19.2 ppg, 5.2 apg, 2.4 spg) and Duke Miles (16.5 ppg, 4.2 apg, 2.6 spg).

The two have been a wrecking crew most of the season through their quickness and play-making ability. Tanner was a first-team All-SEC pick and Miles scored 30 in the win Friday over Tennessee.

Arkansas also has elite guards, led by SEC Player of the Year Darius Acuff Jr. (22.7 ppg, 6.5 apg) and Meleek Thomas (15.6 ppg). Acuff scored 24 and dished out seven assists on Saturday and Thomas added 29 and five.

Thomas played all 45 minutes on Saturday, just as he did in an 88-84 win over Missouri when Acuff was out with injury.

“There is no one that would say to Meleek anything that would believe him to believe he’s not as good as good as any player in the country,” Calipari said after Saturday. “He has otherworldly — otherworldly, now — confidence. Like, he could run for president one day. … I’ve gotta let him do some crazy stuff. I get on him but he’ll look at me like, ‘You’re nuts. You don’t have any idea how good I am.’ And I love that.”

The Razorbacks handed Vanderbilt its most lopsided loss of the season with a 93-68 walloping in Fayetteville on Jan. 20.

Arkansas is best in the country at avoiding turnovers (12.2%), per KenPom.

The 6-foot-3 Acuff and 6-5 Thomas also have the height advantage, respectively, on Tanner (6-0) and Miles (6-2), who had just 11 and five points, respectively, in the first game.

–Chris Lee, Field Level Media

With hopes for a shot at another Big Ten tournament title needing a final-minute game-winner, No. 3 Michigan turned to its top scorer to keep winning in the Windy City.

Yaxel Lendeborg and the top-seeded Wolverines will look to repeat as conference tournament champions and lock down a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament when they meet No. 18 Purdue in the championship game Sunday afternoon in Chicago.

On the road last month, Michigan (now 31-2) defeated the No. 7 seed Boilermakers 91-80 behind 17 points from Elliot Cadeau, but Sunday’s matchup came about largely by big shots from Lendeborg.

The 6-foot-9 senior produced two key moments in Saturday’s 68-65 semifinal win over No. 5 seed Wisconsin, the most obvious being a tiebreaking 3-pointer off a pass from Cadeau from the right corner. He buried a 24-footer with 0.4 seconds left in the rematch of last season’s tournament title game.

“(My teammates) strive for me to make plays like that, and I’ve always dreamed of hitting a shot like that,” said Lendeborg, the squad’s leading scorer who totaled 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals. “Today was my moment to finally come through, and I did.”

While Lendeborg was crucial at the end, he said his team’s composure was equally important, especially in a first half when the Wolverines made just eight of 30 shots, including his trey at the end of the half to knot it 28-all.

“It’s all about composure, and we talk about how unselfish this team is,” said Lendeborg, the Big Ten Player of the Year. “We all love each other and all play for each other. And Aday (Mara) really got it going, so we decided to play through him, and everybody fell in line.”

Mara produced 16 points, eight rebounds, five blocked shots and two assists as Michigan survived Wisconsin’s three-quarter-court heave to advance to Sunday’s game.

A win Sunday over the Boilermakers (26-8) would allow the Wolverines to cut down the nets for a fifth time to end the Big Ten tournament, though the 1998 title was vacated due to NCAA sanctions.

Following a 73-66 win over banged up UCLA in the second semifinal, Purdue is a team brimming with confidence over the three tourney games, according to coach Matt Painter.

“(This run) is just building some confidence more than anything,” Painter said of his club, which went 2-4 to close out the regular season dating back to the Michigan setback. “Just trying to execute offensively and be efficient and be better on the basketball from a defensive standpoint.

“When we’re better on the basketball, it really helps us.”

Big man Oscar Cluff has been on the basketball, being the first to come up with it most of the time after missed shots.

He produced his eighth double-double with 17 points and 14 rebounds in Saturday’s win, owning the paint against the Bruins with nine offensive boards.

The 6-foot-11 bearded Australian had eight points in the final 3:41 as Purdue pulled away for the win.

“He’s had some games like that,” Painter said. “He had 10 offensive rebounds against Nebraska in the regular season. He’s been a horse for us, just being physical down there posting up and getting every rebound.”

A win over Michigan would give the Boilermakers their third conference tournament title and first since 2023.

–Field Level Media