The Basketball Tournament is a summertime event where teams are put together comprised of primarily American players that are playing overseas. These teams then compete in a single elimination tournament for a $1,000,000 prize.
A trend in the composition of these teams has been for alumni of a school to put together a nucleus of players, and round out the team with a few non-alumni players. In the COVID-19 trimmed field of 24 teams, nine of the teams were “Alumni teams” with Syracuse, Marquette, Oklahoma State, Clemson, Ohio State, Illinois, Purdue, Dayton, and Marshall represented.
St. Bonaventure was also slated to field a team prior to the field size being reduced, and a “Mid-American Unity” team comprised primarily of Akron alumni was originally part of the field before being forced to drop out due to positive coronavirus tests.