Peoria All-Stars Advance to TBT Midwest Regional

Peoria All-Stars won two games at the inaugural TBT Jamboree in Philadelphia to earn the 16th spot in the TBT Midwest Region field next month at Renaissance Coliseum

Bobby Parker, Associate AD for Communications Men's Basketball 6/18/2017 1:05:00 PM

PHILADELPHIA - The 2017 The Basketball Tournament Midwest Regional will have more than one hometown team. With the Always A Brave Bradley alumni team already in the 16-team field as the defending Midwest Region champion, Peoria All-Stars punched its ticket as the region's 16th team by winning two games during the inaugural TBT Jamboree this weekend at Philadelphia University.

With a roster composed of players from the Peoria area, Peoria All-Stars opened the inaugural TBT Jamboree with a 73-70 win Saturday against Philly Dimes. The All-Stars followed with an 84-72 win Sunday against New York-based Reach 1 Teach 1 to claim the final spot in next month's TBT Midwest Regional. Morton High School product and recent Sienna graduate Brett Bisping led the way with 15 points and 12 rebounds Saturday, then turned in game-highs of 23 points and nine rebounds Sunday. Manual High School's Lawrence Alexander scored 19 points in both games and Peoria High's Aldonis Foote buried 4-of-6 3-point field goal tries in the first half of his 20-point effort Sunday.

Now in its fourth year, The Basketball Tournament, is an open-application, 5-on-5 summer basketball tournament that will award a $2 million, winner-take-all cash prize to its champion, which will be crowned Aug. 3 in Baltimore. Every game in the tournament, beginning with the TBT Jamboree, is being broadcast by the ESPN family of networks.

Bradley University's alumni team, Always A Brave, advanced to the TBT 2016 semifinals last year and earned an automatic bid to TBT 2017 as the defending Midwest Region champion. Enjoy Peoria, the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, worked with TBT officials and Bradley University to secure Renaissance Coliseum as the venue for this summer's Midwest Regional, making Peoria the first small city to host games in the national tournament. All other regional, Super 16 and championship games have been played or are being played this summer in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.

With the 64-team field completed by this weekend's four Jamboree winners, TBT officials Tuesday are expected to reveal the seeds and schedule for the 16-team Midwest Regional, which will be played July 15-16 at Bradley University's Renaissance Coliseum. In addition to Always A Brave and Peoria All-Stars, the other 14 teams in the Midwest Region include college alumni teams from Iowa State (Hilton Magic Legends, Kansas State (Purple & Black), Marquette (Golden Eagles), Milwaukee (Banner Boys), Ohio State (Scarlet & Gray) and Saint Louis (Majerus SLU Crew), as well as a team of NBA D-League players from the Fort Wayne Mad Ants (Fort Wayne Champs).

TBT Midwest Region tickets are on sale at www.thetournament.com: single-day tickets for Saturday, July 15 (all 8 games) or Sunday, July 16 (4 games) are $20 for adults, $5 for children 13 and under, $40 for a single-day Family Four Pack and $30 for an individual Weekend Pass. Fans may use the promo code BRAVEFAN10 for a 10 percent discount on online ticket purchases, as well as merchandise purchases from the online merchandise store.

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