The Basketball Tournament, or "TBT" for short, is an open 5-on-5 basketball tournament that has been held since 2014; this summer, the tournament champions will take home a $2 million dollar prize. Thanks to sponsorships and some media coverage, that award purse has increased from $500,000 in its first year.
TBT is truly "open" -- you could enter a team consisting of playground misfits who never played at a high level before if you wanted -- however, the field is usually dominated by former college players (often pros). Players have to be over-18 and be willing to lose their amateur status. In 2014, current Penn State coach Dwayne Anderson entered a team of fellow alumni called Team ROBY.
This summer, the former-Wildcats look to return to the 2016 TBT hardwood as Team SuperNova. Their roster features some very notable names from Villanova-teams-past, and may have a recent NBA All-Star on the sidelines as their coach:
- Scottie Reynolds
- Malik Wayns
- Corey Fisher
- Reggie Redding
- James Bell
- Isaiah Armwood
- Antonio Pena
- Maurice Sutton
- Mouphtaou Yarou [tweet]
- Malcolm [tweet]
The field for TBT is limited to 64 teams, and selections are made based on social engagement -- fans need to log in and vote for a favorite team. The bracket is similar to the NCAA tournament, with four regions playing into a Final Four. The 12 teams with the most fan votes in each region are given an automatic bid, and then four more teams from each region are selected "at-large" by tournament organizers.
Every team in the field has to have at least 200 votes to qualify for at-large selection, however.
Regionals are being held in mid-July in Los Angeles, Charlotte, Chicago and Philadelphia. The Philadelphia region, as well as the (non-infringing) "super sixteen" and quarterfinals will be held at Philadelphia University on July 16-17 and July 21-23. The regional winners will then meet in New York for the final two rounds on July 30 and August 2nd. The ESPN family of networks will offer coverage of the later rounds of the tournament.
Also, fans can win up to 10% of the $2 million by recruiting other fans.
Kansas State's alumni entry is the current top vote-getter with just under 3,000 votes, with the Kentucky Alumni and Syracuse Alumni in second and third with 1100 and 900 votes. SuperNOVA is still under-200 votes at the time of this writing, so they'll need some help to qualify -- but there is plenty of time. Voting has been open since April 1, and will run until June 1.
Voting ends on June 1st, vote NOW at TheTournament.com.
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