The Basketball Tournament (TBT) is an annual, open-invitation, single-elimination tournament that consist of 64 teams where former college basketball players compete to win one million dollars. TBT, which tipped off today, uses a familiar bracket format as the NCAA Tournament, only TBT has 8 regions as opposed to the NCAA’s 4 regions. The Happy Valley Hoopers (HVH) was founded in 2023 and the roster consists of Nittany Lion alumni, some who are already playing professional ball, but just not in the NBA, which is not permitted in TBT.
Today, the No. 1-seed Happy Valley Hoopers fell to the No. 8-seed Raleigh 919 Legends 79-75 in first round action. The game was played at the Atlantic Union Bank Center of James Madison University. For the Happy Valley Hoopers, Curtis Jones led the way with 16 points, while Greg Lee chipped in 13 points. Guard Myreon Jones added an additional 11 points and forward John Harrar finished with 10 points.
The Happy Valley Hoopers got off to a sluggish start and by the end of Quarter 1 they were only down 20-15. In Quarter 2, the Legends started to feel their stride, and at halftime the Legends were up 43-28. The Hoopers only shot 25% from the field in the first half.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.To begin the second half, the HVH started to find momentum. Dallion Johnson knocked in three 3-pointers and Curtis Jones started to heat up. By the end of quarter 3, the HVH were down 59-51. In the final quarter of play, the Happy Valley Hoopers had cut the lead to 1 point, 73-72, but the Legends kept finding answers for any HVH comeback.
The Happy Valley Hoopers, last year, advanced to TBT quarterfinals. They will now have to regroup and wait another year to try to make another run at the 1-million dollar purse.
