Updated 6:21 p.m. Tuesday
A Kansas alumni team will be back competing in The Basketball Tournament for the second straight year.
TBT announced on Tuesday morning that the Mass Street team will participate in the 64-team winner-take-all tournament, which has a prize of $1 million.
Mass Street, which is one of the last teams to enter the field, will play at Wichita’s Charles Koch Arena on July 20 at 7 p.m., against an opponent that is not yet known.
A TBT spokesperson told the Journal-World that the Mass St. name, image and likeness collective, which oversaw the team last season, is no longer involved with managing the Mass Street team, despite its consistent branding. (A spokesperson for Blueprint Sports, which oversees the collective, said the collective would have “very minimal involvement.”) Former KU guard Tyshawn Taylor is now in charge of the team.
The team announced its return by revealing that guard Frank Mason III, who was not part of the team last year, will play in this year’s edition.
“I’m super excited to announce that I’ll be playing with the Mass Street alumni this year in the regional,” Mason said in a video posted on social media. “The tickets are on sale today. I’m looking forward to it and I can’t wait to see the Jayhawk nation and all the fans. I miss you guys so much. Let’s go, let’s do it.”
Mason, who played several seasons in the NBA, spent last year with Nancy in the French league.
Last year’s Mass Street squad beat We Are D3, a team of former Division III players, and Show Me Squad, a group of Missouri alumni, in the 2023 edition of the tournament, before losing to eventual TBT champion Heartfire in the third round.
It was just the second KU alumni team to participate in TBT, after the Self Made team lost in the first round in 2019.
According to a roster posted on the TBT website, Travis Releford will serve as the team’s general manager, while Mario Little, Thomas Robinson, Jamari Traylor, Lagerald Vick and Kevin Young are expected to return from last season’s Mass Street team. Dedric Lawson was briefly on the roster last year and returns this time around. Silvio De Sousa and Malik Newman are new additions alongside Mason.
In a video posted by TBT, Mason said he was excited to play with Robinson, who hit two game-winners in the tournament’s Elam Ending format last season.
“He had a great career there (at KU), I had a pretty good career, and it’ll be a great match,” he said. “A great roster so far, looking to add a couple more pieces, but I think it’s a great start with us two.”
Ben McLemore was initially included on the Mass Street roster, two months after he was arrested in Oregon on sex crime charges, including one charge of first-degree rape. His name was removed from the list within hours of its release. The TBT spokesperson said that “our group jumped the gun in publishing his name on the roster” but that the “door is not closed” to him potentially participating.
AP Photo/John Raoux
