MORGANTOWN, W. Va. —
John Flowers, the general manager of Best Virginia, confirmed Wednesday the WVU men’s basketball alumni team will be part of a condensed The Basketball Tournament (TBT) later this summer.
TBT founder Jonathan Mugar announced the field of teams would drop from 64 to 24 teams, but would still take place in July at a single location rather than eight regional sites.
“We feel we can absolutely put on a fun and safe event,” Mugar told ESPN.
The location of the tournament and the exact days it will be played have yet to be announced and the 24-team field is expected to be announced in June.
Charleston had originally been selected as one of the eight regional sites and Flowers said he was still holding out hope that the state’s capital could still be the host for the new format.
“I haven’t been told that it can’t be Charleston,” said Flowers, who was a standout forward at WVU from 2007-11. “I don’t know why it can’t be in Charleston. Wherever it is, I hope it’s close.”
Under normal circumstances, TBT is a 64-team, single-elimination tournament with the winning team earning a $2 million payday.
TBT has not yet announced the purse for the 2020 tournament.
Best Virginia competed in Richmond last year and was eliminated in the second round, but tournament officials saw the large gathering of WVU fans at the arena and had awarded Charleston a regional site this year.
TBT officials said the location this year would be “an inner island,” where players from each team would have to quarantine themselves for 14 days and then be tested for COVID-19 before traveling. Upon arrival, each player would be tested again.
“We’ve been told that if any player tests positive, then the whole team is out of the tournament,” Flowers said. “We recently had a Zoom session with everyone so they know what to expect.”
After five days at the location, players are expected to be tested for a third time, according to the ESPN report.
“Basically, we’re expecting a lot of basketball and a lot of testing,” Flowers said.
As for Best Virginia’s roster, it is a nine-man roster of Flowers, Da’Sean Butler, Kevin Jones, Tarik Phillip, Juwan Staten, Nathan Adrian, Jaysean Paige, Jonathan Holton and Daxter Miles Jr. The team will be coached for a second year by Jarrod West, a former WVU standout guard, who is now the head coach at Notre Dame in Clarksburg.
Former WVU standout Devin Williams was also scheduled to play with Best Virginia, but has opted to play with another team this summer.
“I’m not sure if we’ll replace Devin or not,” Flowers said. “We’ll see what happens.”
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Flowers said plans to hold exhibition games around the state before playing in the tournament were canceled.
“We had to scratch all of that just to be on the safe side,” Flowers said. “The guys were pretty upset about that, because they looked forward to going out and meeting with our fans around the state who have supported us for years.
“With everything going on, though, we just felt like it wasn’t worth the risk.”
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