Tyler Bey (left) and D’Shawn Schwartz are two of the former Buffaloes basketball players set to play for Team Colorado in The Basketball Tournament. (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)
The return of Team Colorado will take place in Dayton.
The bracket for the 2023 The Basketball Tournament was released on Wednesday, with Team Colorado facing a first-round matchup on July 26 in the Dayton bracket against the Mackey Men, a squad comprised mostly of former Purdue players.
The entire 64-team bracket for the $1 million winner-take-all tournament was announced, with eight-team brackets squaring off in seven locations — Dayton, Ohio; Wichita, Kan.; Cincinnati; Louisville, Ky.; Syracuse, N.Y.; Lubbock, Texas; and Wheeling, W.Va.
The quarterfinals will be held in Wheeling, Wichita, Dayton and Louisville. The final four will be held in Philadelphia, with the semifinals set for Aug. 2 and the jackpot championship game to follow on Aug. 3.
Team Colorado and Team Mackey tip off on July 26 at 1 p.m. All TBT games will be available via the ESPN family of networks. The winner between the former Buffaloes and Boilermakers will play again on July 28 against the first-round winner between Friday Beers (formerly Armored Athlete, whose 23 games played in TBT is tied for the second-most in the 2023 field) and Athletics Miami.
Due largely to pandemic-caused issues, the former Buffs haven’t played in TBT since 2019. Team Colorado narrowly missed cashing in on the jackpot in 2016 after squandering a lead in the title game, but the latest incarnation of Team Colorado will feature a roster of more recent former Buffs.
The roster is set to include four players from CU’s 2021 NCAA Tournament team in Dallas Walton, Jeriah Horne, Evan Battey and D’Shawn Schwartz. Schwartz still is expected to play despite signing a contract for next season with a club in France after averaging about 18 points per game last season in Turkey.
A number of former teammates of that 2021 core also are planning to play for Team Colorado, including George King, Tyler Bey, Dominique Collier and Shane Gatling. Former CU forward Lucas Siewert was on the original Team Colorado roster, but he was forced to bow out after receiving an offer to play for the Brazilian National Team this summer.
Tre’Shaun Fletcher and Shannon Sharpe round out the roster for Team Colorado, which will be coached by CU director of player development Zach Ruebesam.
A pre-tournament training camp will be held in Boulder beginning July 22.
“We’re extremely excited to be in the tournament again,” Ruebesam said in a release. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to get off the ground so to see us in the bracket with a matchup, it feels a little bit more real now.
“All the hard work and planning stuff that we’ve done up to this point has paid off and now is kind of where the fun part happens of planning to get the guys on…
Read More: Bracket set for Team Colorado in The Basketball Tournament – BuffZone 2023-06-21 18:41:48