Penn State basketball’s TBT team will begin play tonight in Syracuse.
Happy Valley Hoopers’ FULL TBT ROSTER🦁 pic.twitter.com/t8O4O86JZG
— TBT (@thetournament) July 22, 2023
The team, called the Happy Valley Hoopers, consists of 12 former Penn State players.
TBT stands for The Basketball Tournament, which consists of 64 alumni teams that will play in a single-elimination format.
The winning team will get a $1 million dollar prize.
The Happy Valley Hoopers’ first matchup will be against The Nerd Team in the Syracuse region. The Nerd Team consists of players who played at schools such as Colgate, Harvard, Notre Dame, Princeton and Yale. If the Happy Valley Hoopers beat The Nerd Team, they’ll take on the winner of Boeheim’s Army (Syracuse) and Team Gibson (Chicago). The second-round game is scheduled for Wednesday at 6, and the Syracuse regional championship is scheduled for Friday at 9. There are eight total teams in the Syracuse Regional, with the other four being Blue Collar U (Buffalo), Big Five (Philadelphia) and Virginia Dream and the Commonwealth (Massachusetts).
If the Happy Valley Hoopers make it out of the Syracuse Regional, they’ll move onto the quarterfinals, which are scheduled for Sunday, July 30 at Wheeling, West Virginia’s WesBanco Arena.
The semifinals and the championship game are scheduled for Aug. 2 and 3 at Philadelphia’s Daskalakis Athletic Center.
The man who organized this alumni team is John Harrar, a fan-favorite who played his last game at Penn State less than 18 months ago and recently signed a deal to play in Japan. Other players include Myles Dread (2018-23), Sam Sessoms (2020-22), Jamari Wheeler (2017-21), Mike Watkins (2016-20), Josh Reaves (2015-19) and Shep Garner (2016-18).
The head coach is former Penn State assistant Ross Condon, and he’ll be assisted by former PSU graduate assistant Bo Waggoner.
Here’s more information on How to Watch the Happy Valley Hoopers’ first TBT game.
When: 4:00
Where: Syracuse, New York
TV: ESPN 2
Streaming: WatchESPN
