| The Basketball Tournament | |
| Year: | 2019 |
| Start Date: | July 19 |
| End Date: | August 6, 2019 |
| Tournament Format: | Single elimination |
| Host: |
|
| Participants: | 64 |
| Stat1 Label: | Games played |
| Stat1: | 63 |
| Purse: | Regionals: 25% of ticket proceeds, winner-take all Championship: US$2,000,000 winner-take-all |
| Champions: | Carmen's Crew |
| Runner-Up1: | Golden Eagles |
| Mvp: | William Buford |
| Top Scorer: | Dwight Buycks (123 pts)[1] |
| Previous: | 2018 |
| Next: | 2020 |
The Basketball Tournament 2019 was the sixth edition of The Basketball Tournament (TBT), a 5-on-5, single elimination basketball tournament broadcast by the ESPN family of networks.[2] The tournament, involving 64 teams, started on July 19 and continued through the championship game on August 6 at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.[3] [4] The winner of the final, Carmen's Crew, received a $2 million prize.[5]
The tournament began with a field of 64 teams, organized into eight regions of 8 teams, all of which were seeded. In a first for TBT, each regional was hosted by a competing team, with the winner of each regional receiving a prize equal to 25% of that region's ticket proceeds. Host teams were announced on January 29, 2019, ahead of the start of the open entry period on March 1. The full bracket was announced on June 11.[6]
The Puma Posterize Dunk Contest was held during the quarterfinals, on August 2. The contest "features players attempting to dunk over one another."[4] The contest and $40,000 top prize was won by William Coleman of Bluff City,[7] a team of Memphis Tigers alumni.
The Basketball Tournament 2019 was staged in nine locations.[3] Red dots mark regional locations and the green dot marks the championship location. The Wichita Regional, held near McConnell Air Force Base, was branded as "The Wichita Regional Presented by Air Force Reserve", through sponsorship by the Air Force Reserve.[8]
Multiple teams in the tournament were comprised mostly or exclusively of alumni of a particular school, program, or a group of closely related schools. These teams are listed below.
| Region | Seed | Team | School/program | Origins of name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbus | align=center | 1 | Carmen's Crew | Ohio State Buckeyes | School song "Carmen Ohio" |
| Columbus | align=center | 2 | Kohl Blooded | Wisconsin Badgers | Kohl Center, the Badgers' home |
| Columbus | align=center | 3 | Red Scare | Dayton Flyers | Primary school color and student section nickname |
| Columbus | align=center | 7 | Mid-American Unity | Mid-American Conference schools | |
| Greensboro | align=center | 2 | Team CP3 | AAU | Chris Paul's nickname |
| Greensboro | align=center | 3 | Power of the Paw | Clemson Tigers | Clemson's athletic logo is a tiger's paw |
| Lexington | align=center | 2 | Bluegrass Boys | Kentucky Wildcats | State nickname; also, the Wildcats' home of Lexington is a major city in the state's Bluegrass region |
| Memphis | align=center | 1 | Gael Force | Saint Mary's Gaels | |
| Memphis | align=center | 2 | Bluff City | Memphis Tigers | City nickname |
| Memphis | align=center | 3 | Team Arkansas | Arkansas Razorbacks | |
| Richmond | align=center | 2 | Ram Nation | VCU Rams | |
| Richmond | align=center | 3 | Green Machine | George Mason Patriots | Primary school color |
| Richmond | align=center | 4 | Best Virginia | West Virginia Mountaineers | |
| Richmond | align=center | 5 | Seven City Royalty | Old Dominion Monarchs | "Seven Cities", a nickname sometimes applied to ODU's home of the Hampton Roads area |
| Richmond | align=center | 6 | The Web | Richmond Spiders | |
| Richmond | align=center | 8 | Hilltop Dawgs | UMBC Retrievers | School's physical location |
| Salt Lake | align=center | 4 | Sons of Westwood | UCLA Bruins | Title of one of UCLA's fight songs, derived from the school's location in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Westwood |
| Salt Lake | align=center | 7 | Utah Stallions | Utah State Aggies | |
| Syracuse | 1 | Boeheim's Army | Syracuse Orange | Current Orange head coach Jim Boeheim | |
| Syracuse | 5 | GaelNation | Iona Gaels | ||
| Syracuse | 6 | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | Rutgers player and head coach Jim Valvano (1946–1993) | ||
| Syracuse | 7 | Team Draddy | Manhattan Jaspers | Draddy Gymnasium, the Jaspers' home | |
| Syracuse | 8 | We Are D3 | NCAA Division III programs | Common abbreviation for NCAA Division III | |
| Wichita | 1 | Golden Eagles | Marquette Golden Eagles | ||
| Wichita | 2 | AfterShocks | Wichita State Shockers | ||
| Wichita | 3 | Self Made | Kansas Jayhawks | Current Jayhawks head coach Bill Self | |
| Wichita | 4 | Team Colorado | Colorado Buffaloes | ||
| Wichita | 5 | Purple & Black | Kansas State Wildcats | School colors | |
| Wichita | 7 | Iowa United | Iowa's four Division I schools (Drake, Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa) |
Regional games were televised on ESPN or ESPN2, or streamed on ESPN3; the quarterfinals were televised on ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNU; the semifinals and final were televised on ESPN.[9] Each regional winner received 25% of the ticket sales in their region as a prize.[10]
| Round | Dates | Region | Venue & Location | Host team | Winning team | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regional | July 19–21 | Columbus | align=center colspan=2 | $21,025 | ||
| Greensboro | Team CP3 | Team Hines | $3,732 | |||
| Lexington | Bluegrass Boys | Loyalty Is Love | $5,343 | |||
| Memphis | Bluff City | Jackson TN Underdawgs | $6,226 | |||
| July 25–27 | Salt Lake | Team Fredette | $3,584 | |||
| July 25–28 | Wichita | AfterShocks | $96,439 | |||
| July 26–28 | Richmond | Ram Nation | $17,349 | |||
| Syracuse | Team Brotherly Love | $31,871 |
| Round | Dates | Venue & Location |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterfinals | August 1–2 | Wintrust Arena Chicago, Illinois |
| Semifinals | August 4 | |
| Finals | August 6 |
All times Eastern.
| valign=top align=right width=33% |
|
| No. | Pos | Player | College | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | F | Jared Sullinger (Head coach) | Ohio State | |
| 1 | F | Northern Illinois | ||
| 2 | G | East Tennessee State | ||
| 4 | G | Ohio State | ||
| 11 | F | Otterbein | ||
| 12 | G | Illinois | ||
| 21 | G/F | Ohio State | ||
| 22 | F | Ohio State | ||
| 23 | G/F | Ohio State | ||
| 24 | F | Ohio State | ||
| 33 | G | Ohio State | ||
| 34 | F | Cincinnati | ||
| 44 | G | Ohio State | ||
| 52 | F | Ohio State | ||
| 99 | F | Evan Turner (Asst. coach) | Ohio State | |
| bgcolor=lightgray | GM | Ohio State | ||
| Pos | Player | Team | PPG--> | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | bgcolor=yellow | William Buford (MVP) | Carmen's Crew | |
| G | Carmen's Crew | |||
| F | Overseas Elite | |||
| G | Jackson TN Underdawgs | |||
| G | Golden Eagles | |||
| bgcolor=lightgray | GM | Golden Eagles |