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Notre Dame Fighting Alumni overcome odds to take home TBT crown, $500,000

06/28/2014, 10:30pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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BOSTON--The Basketball Tournament’s grand finale was all set up for a Barstool Sports victory.

The Boston-based sports website had backed a team of NBA veterans to enter the 32-team tournament, whose winning squad would earn a half a million dollars to split amongst themselves.

They attracted the biggest social media following of the more than 100 teams that signed up, earning them top seed for the tournament’s first four rounds in Philadelphia on June 6-8. They then won the online vote to bring the tournament’s finale, picking a 24-second shot clock to speed up the less-athletic Notre Dame Fighting Alumni.

None of it mattered to that group of former Notre Dame players, who overcame a five-point halftime deficit to walk away from Beantown $500,000 richer after a 72-68 win.

Afterwards, the entire team sat in the media room, surrounding one giant check with giant smiles to match.

"Five hundred grand, that's a lot on the line," Notre Dame forward Rob Kurz said. "This was up there in terms of one of the most pressure games I've ever played."

Even though Barstool's fans filled Boston University's Case Arena with defeaning chants of "I believe that we will win," it was their opponents who led most of the game, and almost the entire second half.

Philadelphia’s own Ryan Ayers knocked down a key pair of free throws with 1:30 remaining to turn a one-point game into a 69-66 advantage. Then the Fighting Alumni, the 10th seed in the event, had to hold on.

Dahntay Jones and Matt Walsh, two former NBA players who are still playing professionally, both missed 3-pointers with a minute to play. After Barstool regained possession on a turnover, former Providence guard Donnie McGrath was long on a trey of his own.

Ayers was sent back to the line with 29.4 on the clock, and made both yet again to put the Fighting Alumni up five points.

"I just wanted to concentrate and make them, to be honest with you," he said. "I knew it would make them a two-possession game...it was just calm, cool and collected."

Jones' missed 3-pointer with four seconds sealed Barstool's fate, with a Russell Carter free-throw for Notre Dame and a Jones dunk at the buzzer providing for the final tally.

Ayers finished second on his team with 15 points, behind former Irish forward Tyrone Nash's 19; Nash shot 8-of-10 from the floor and added four rebounds as well. Kurz, another Philadelphia native and Penn Charter grad, had 11 as the third member of the team in double figures.

They certainly played strong enough to make head coach Mike Brey proud. Brey, who's been at the helm of the Notre Dame men's basketball program for 15 seasons, was in attendance at the final and took the whole team out to dinner the night before.

“This is a special group to me. A lot of them played together, some of them are from different eras, but it’s been neat," he said. "It’s really the mark of the program when you have guys like that that are together. Even some of my guys who didn’t play, they’ve come to support them, so I couldn’t miss it.”

Barstool was led by a 21-point effort from Jones, though the 6-6 wing was 6-of-14 from the floor as his team shot just 39 percent (22-of-56) overall. Notre Dame made 46 percent (26-of-57) overall, including 37 percent (7-of-19) from 3-point range.

Joining Jones in double figures for Barstool were former Seton Hall point guard Andre Barrett with 13, while Josh Boone and Matt Walsh--both former NBA-ers--had 12 apiece.

Unfazed by the shortened shot clock that Barstool imposed as part of its home-court advantage (the rest of the tournament had a 45-second clock), the Fighting Alumni led by as many as six points with four minutes to play until the break. But Barstool’s NBA-level athleticism started to take hold then, as they would close on an 11-2 run to take a 40-35 advantage into the locker rooms.

"We knew they wanted to speed up the pace, because we were used to the 45-second shot clock," Kurz said. "But once we got used to their pace, we settled in."

"I think the pace worked in our favor," one of his teammates added.

The plan is for The Basketball Tournament to expand in 2015, with hopes of a bigger prize pool and several early-stage locations building up to a prime-time final. No matter what, you can count on the Notre Dame Fighting Alumni defending their title.

"It's real simple," Carter said. "Back-to-back."