MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia and Marshall alumni squads will face off in the opening round of ‘The Basketball Tournament’ on July 5.
Best Virginia is seeded 10th and Herd That is seeded 23rd. Their game is one of eight opening round matchups and is scheduled for July 5. The game time and TV designation is still to be announced. All 23 games in the single elimination tournament will be played without fans at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The winner of the Best Virginia and Herd That game will advance to TBT’s second round to face Floyd Mayweather’s ‘The Money Team’ on July 9.
“We thought this may happen,” said Best Virginia assistant coach Dave Tallman. “We have been talking about this for a couple weeks. We said they might put us with Marshall.
“They’ve got a bunch of good shooters and scorers and they play fast. They get up and down and watching some film today, there isn’t a shot they don’t like.”
Defending champion Carmen’s Crew is the tournament’s top seed in the seventh year of the event. A one million dollar winner-take-all prize goes to the winning team. 120 teams applied for the 24-team event.
Best Virginia made their TBT debut last summer, advancing to the second round of the Richmond Regional before falling to Overseas Elite. Many of the Herd That players competed for the West Virginia Wildcats in the Columbus Regional in 2019.
“I think we learned that we needed more guards. That was the big thing after last year. Especially when Juwan Staten went down with the injury late in the first game and we didn’t have him in the second game. It is a very guard-oriented tournament.”
These 24 teams will compete for $1 MILLION in Columbus July 4-14! ?? pic.twitter.com/ihcG7y9wkY
— TBT (@thetournament) June 16, 2020
The WVU alumni squad is led by forward and general manager John Flowers. The roster spans the ‘Final Four’ and ‘Press Virginia’ eras and features Kevin Jones, Juwan Staten, Nate Adrian, Jaysean Paige, Jonathan Holton, Tarik Phillip, Logan Routt, Teyvon Myers and Daxter Miles, Jr. Jarrod West, Dave Tallman and Greg Richardson are the coaches.
Ot Elmore is the general manager and guard for Herd That. He is joined by Jon Elmore, Stevie Browning, Ryan Taylor, C.J. Burks, Rondale Watson, Ryan Luther (Pittsburgh/Arizona) , Zach Smith (Texas Tech), JaCorey Williams (Middle Tennessee State) and Chris Cokley (UAB).
Players can still be added and deleted from the rosters prior to the TBT. Testing for COVID-19 will be a frequent part of the tournament setup for all teams.
“They are being very careful. We are going to get tested before we leave. Then we will be tested upon arrival and we will be tested every second day we are there. It is going to be quite a bit but it will be worth it to get back in the gym.”