... The Basketball Tournament, a 32-team five-on-five bracket with a $500,000 winner-take-all prize.
...
Any legal U.S. resident over 18 can participate, though eligibility and contractual barriers would obviously bar active NCAA and NBA players from playing in a tournament for money. But part of the fun is seeing what kind of teams thoughtful folks put together. Royce White has expressed interest in forming a team, Mugar and Martelli say, though White hasn’t made a firm commitment yet. However, his impending 10-day contract with the Kings will put an end to that. Bob Hurley Sr., the legendary coach of St. Anthony’s High School in New Jersey, has already agreed to oversee a team of alumni players, he says. Terry Dehere, a St. Anthony’s grad and former Big East Player of the Year at Seton Hall, is organizing the group. If they win, the team will donate the prize money to the high school, Hurley says.
...
Players on Cornell University’s 2010 Sweet 16 team have already started trading messages about reuniting for this tournament, Mugar says. Ditto for the George Mason team that made the 2006 Final Four, and for a group of recent Louisville alumni. The organizers would love for a strong women’s team to enter the competition. Kenny Hasbrouck and Josh Selby, well-known college players who didn’t make a dent in the NBA, have also shown interest, Mugar and Martelli say.
Picking the teams is the fun part. Any group of between seven and 10 players can apply for one of the 32 spots on TBT’s website (launching today). Every team has to have a “general manager” who selects the players, manages the team, and recruits “fans” through the website. Every “fan” must fill out a simple form to become official, and any team wishing to make the 32-team field must recruit at least 100 such fans — and likely thousands more. The 24 teams with the most fans will earn automatic bids into the 32-team field. The tournament organizers will choose the remaining eight teams, provided they’ve all met a baseline of 100 enlisted fans. That allows the tournament to make sure a high-profile team can make the field even if it somehow fails to pile up enough fans to crack the top 24.
The organizers will then seed the teams based on talent and kick off a single-elimination tournament starting June 6 at Philadelphia University. The title game, with $500,000 on the line, will be June 28 at a location to be determined. The two participating teams will nominate several potential venues in their home-base cities, and fans will vote online to decide which team should host the game. Mugar and Martelli envision the host team packing a high school gym, Hoosiers-style, with personal meaning to them. The tournament will pay travel costs for the “visiting” finalists.
