Over the weekend, The Basketball Tournament took place in Columbus at the Covelli Center on Ohio State’s campus. Some teams came from as far away as Armenia. But there were also teams made up of alumni from local universities—like Dayton, Ohio University, Ohio State and Xavier.
The tournament has a unique format. There are 64 teams. It is single elimination. And the winner takes all. In this case, the grand prize is $1 million split amongst the players. The tournament also has a unique rule called the Elam Ending — where the game clock gets shut off in the last four minutes of the game. Instead of fouls and eating up the game clock to end a game, the Elam Ending encourages actual gameplay all the way through the end of the game.
The Red Scare—a team mostly made up of University of Dayton alumni—lost in the second round of the tournament. The Scare had Flyers from different eras. Including some from the 2013 team that made it to the Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament. And some from the nationally ranked 2020 team that had their season cut short due to COVID.
They lost a close game to Category Five on Sunday—a Miami of Florida Hurricanes alumni team—after defeating BC Vahakni City of Armenia on Saturday in the first round.
The final round of The Basketball Tournament will be held in Dayton next weekend at University of Dayton arena.
Environmental reporter Chris Welter is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
