Wheeling the TBT is here. The Basketball Tournament regional is back in West Virginia. Charleston was the previous host city, now the Friendly City takes over as the host. There is some construction going on in the downtown area, but that won’t deter Wheeling from being a great host city.
The TBT is a $1,000,000 winner take all basketball tournament that started in 2014 in Philadelphia. They have since hosted over 400 games and given out $10,000,000 in prize money. The TBT has also partnered with ESPN to broadcast the games. It has become a premier basketball event.
Along with this they’ve added the Elam ending to the game of basketball. Nick Elam came up with the idea of the “hybrid-duration format,” now known in the basketball world as the Elam Ending. Elam was tired of seeing the deliberate fouling at the end of games, so he went into action.
Elam’s idea was to shut the clock down during the 4th quarter and set a target score. The target score would be to add 8 points to the leading teams score and whichever team achieves this score first wins. It takes the clock out of the game and lets the teams focus on offense and defense. This concept is used in every TBT game and has been used in the NBA All-Star Game.
Day 1 had four games on the slate. The first session had Challenge ALS taking on Dawgtown, next up was Sideline Cancer and Ram Nation (VCU). For the evening session we have some local flavor with Best Virginia facing Dubois Dream and Herd That looking to take down the Zoo Crew.
Challenge ALS was victorious in the opening contest of the day by the way of a 95-66 over Dawgtown. After being down 2-0 to start the contest, Challenge ALS took the lead on a Shaheed Davis 3 and never looked back. Brandon Robinson lead the way for Challenge ALS with 20 points. Other double digit scorers were Fletcher Magee (17), Chris Warren (14), and Marvelle Harris (12). They will move on to face Sideline Cancer.
Speaking of Sideline Cancer, they defeated Ram Nation 83-72. Keve Aluma put in 14 for Sideline Cancer in the victory. Other top point scorers were Tyrese Rice and Nick McGlynn which had 12 a piece. Keith Braxton and Braylon Rayson evenly split 20.
It was a great first session and impression for the TBT in Wheeling. The Friendly City provided a great venue and the TBT provided some great entertainment.
Discussion about this post