In the summer of 2016, Marquette basketball fans were able to whet their men’s basketball appetite by watching the Golden Eagle Alumni team make a run in The Basketball Tournament on ESPN.
Former Marquette stars Darius Johnson-Odom, Davante Gardner and Dwight Buycks along with other former Golden Eagles teamed up to play in TBT for a chance to win $2 million. Their run ended in the quarterfinals, equivalent to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight.
Because the team did not make the final four last season they did not automatically qualify for the 2017 tournament. However, the team is back and they intend to compete once again.
“We’re mad enough that we lost last year that we want to take another run at it,” Dan Fitzgerald, the team organizer, said.
To compete again this year the Golden Eagle Alumni will need to be voted in. The voting opens on April 1.
“I want people to really vote, follow us and help us make the tournament,” Fitzgerald said. “But I also want to make sure that people know that your voting and your recruiting of people to vote on your behalf gets you money.”
TBT rewards the top 100 fans based on how many votes they recruit to the team if their team wins the tournament.
“You have pretty good odds if your team is a viable team, which we are, and we were last year,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s a pretty good shot you can win some money.”
The fan who recruits the most votes for the winning team makes $20,000. The next four make $10,000 each, the next 15 make $4,000 and the other 80 each get $1,000.
TBT started in 2014 as an untelevised and relatively unknown 32 team pickup-style tournament.
“In 2014 when we launched no one knew who we were or what this idea was,” Jonathan Mugar, tournament creator and CEO, said. “I think 75 percent of the people we reached out to thought it was fake.”
But the event grew quickly and now most of the games are on ESPN.
“We saw pretty much exponential growth from 2015 to ‘16 and now we just announced a larger deal with ESPN for more games and more games on the main network and we anticipate it will continue that trajectory,” Mugar said.
Notre Dame’s alumni team, Fighting Alumni, won the first ever event in 2014. Alumni teams have become extremely popular in the competition, increasing the event’s growth. TBT reached out to Marquette Athletics, who reached out to Fitzgerald to help start a Marquette team.
“It just helps legitimize our product a lot more and it’s a great way to introduce basketball fans to our tournament,” Mugar said.
Fitzgerald said he expects most of last season’s team to return. Seeing the team’s success could also mean more player interest.
“Most of the guys are wanting to do it again and maybe more that couldn’t last year for whatever reason,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ll see what the roster looks like, but we’ve got plenty of guys to choose from.”
Coming off a quarterfinal run last season, expectations are high.
“Hopefully we’ll do better this year both on the court and in the fan voting,” Fitzgerald said.