KU men’s basketball alumni team Mass Street enters The Basketball Tournament
LAWRENCE — A Kansas men’s basketball alumni team is set to represent the Jayhawks in the 2023 edition of The Basketball Tournament.
The news regarding TBT, which has a 64-team field and a $1 million prize for the winner, came out Monday. Kansas’ team, Mass Street, will be organized by the Mass St. Collective organization that works with KU athletes in the name, image and likeness (NIL) space. This Jayhawks alumni squad will compete in the Wichita Super Regional, which has 16 teams and will have games July 19-23 at Koch Arena.
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“At Mass St. Collective, we are absolutely thrilled to organize a team to participate in TBT,” Dan Beckler, the president of Mass St. Collective and GM of Mass Street TBT, said in a release. “These guys didn’t have the benefit of NIL when they were in college, but we are looking forward to helping them now since they were critical in paving the path in the current landscape of college athletics. For us, NIL is always about benefiting the student-athlete, no matter when they were at Kansas. We know Wichita is full of KU fans that will come out and support these Jayhawks and fill up the arena each game.”
Marcus and Markieff Morris, two former Kansas players who are currently in the NBA, will be on Mass Street’s coaching staff. Former Jayhawks guards Keith Langford and Tyshawn Taylor are already committed to being on the roster. Further commitments will be announced in the coming weeks on social media through the team’s accounts on Twitter and Instagram at @MassStreetTBT.
Mass Street’s first-round contest will be on July 19, and should it win, it will play in the second round on July 22. The super regional’s championship game is on July 23. The winner of that advances to the quarterfinals of the TBT, which means a game set for July 25 that will also be played at Koch Arena.
“I’ve been part of TBT in the past in different roles and can confidently say that this is the best place for guys to play who are still trying to get a shot at the league.” Marcus Morris, who played in the NBA this season for the Los Angeles Clippers, said in a release. “I’m excited to be the head coach for Mass Street and have my brother, Markieff, be my top assistant coach. We’re both looking forward to using our years of NBA experience in a new way to help this team win games. The partnership between TBT and Mass St. Collective is what sold me on joining this KU alumni team. The Mass St. Collective team is elevating the player experience in so many impressive ways that I wanted to do everything I could to be part of it. This is going to be a great roster when it’s all said and done, and we can’t wait to unveil it.”
Tickets for the super regional and quarterfinals contest will be available to those on the TBT’s waitlist on May 1. Then, on May 4, they will become available to the general public. Anyone interested in joining the waitlist can get on it online at thetournament.com/tbt/ticket-waitlist.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: The Basketball Tournament: Kansas alumni team Mass Street joins
