PEORIA, IL - The Bradley Basketball program invites all former players and current fans to come together for a fun evening of interaction and competition during the inaugural Hilltop Hoopin' Summer Slam alumni game and fan festival on campus Monday, July 11.
Hilltop Hoopin' Summer Slam will begin outdoors at 5 p.m. July 11 on the Bradley University Alumni Quad, where Bradley Basketball will host a summer barbecue with music, a wide range of family entertainment, including Kaboom!'s Korner, and the opportunity to interact with Bradley Athletics personnel. Activities will move inside the adjacent Renaissance Coliseum at 7 o'clock for the alumni game, which will feature the Always A Brave Bradley Alumni team that will be preparing for the 2016 The Basketball Tournament Midwest Regional July 16-17 in Chicago.
In it's third year, The Basketball Tournament is an open-application, 5-on-5, single-elimination, winner-take-all basketball tournament that will award $2 million to the winning team this summer. Several former Bradley players are organizing a team, Always A Brave, for the 2016 TBT and the team needs fan support to gain automatic entry into the 64-team field. Fan votes by June 1 will determine 12 automatic entries into each of the tournament's four, 16-team regionals and fans may visit www.thetournament.com to learn more, register and vote for Always A Brave. As an added enticement, the top 100 fans from the tournament's winning team will share $200,000 of the team's $2 million prize. In addition to earning one point for voting, fans may accumulate additional points by recruiting more fans.
With TBT team rosters capped at 11 players, the Always A Brave roster officially has grown to eight players: Tony Bennett, Jeremy Crouch, Will Franklin, Sam Mansicalco, Patrick O'Bryant, Daniel Ruffin, Marcellus Sommerville and Andrew Warren. Guard Walt Lemon, Jr. also has committed to playing with Always A Brave this summer and he is in the process of being added to the official tournament roster. If the team receives 2,000 votes by July 8 and advances out of the regional rounds, a 12th player may be added for the round of 16. Always A Brave will be coached by current Bradley Basketball Director of Operations Rick Karius and former player and assistant coach Chuck Buescher.
