Best Virginia’s TBT roster is “coming together”

The Basketball Match will make its return to Charleston for the second straight season. The Charleston Coliseum and Conference Heart will as soon as once more be the location of the West Virginia Regional.

Each of the state’s Division I applications will likely be represented in Greatest Virginia (WVU) and Herd That (Marshall). They’re the regional co-hosts whereas the six remaining groups will likely be introduced at a late date.

Final summer season, the squad made up of primarily WVU alumni superior to the ultimate sport of the West Virginia Regional, developing simply shy of a spot in TBT Championship Week. Kevin Jones, founding member and participant, credit the home-court benefit for Greatest Virginia’s run.

“For me, it’s positively a motivational issue and one thing that helped us within the event throughout the video games,” Jones stated. “Particularly throughout the robust instances the place we have been down or within the Elam Ending the place we is perhaps struggling. It was such an incredible turnout in Charleston and I’m excited to see the identical or extra this summer season. I believe it helps us with the recruiting of the workforce, as properly. We could have it in our again yard they usually received’t must journey to a different area.”

Whereas enjoying within the Mountain State is attractive for the gamers, there are a selection of different components they’ve to contemplate earlier than making their dedication.

“The roster is coming collectively,” Jones stated. “It’s sort of onerous as a result of everyone is ending up their season or are already dwelling with their household and never fascinated about basketball at this level. We try to offer guys time to relaxation, replicate on their seasons after which attain out to the fellows we wish. If we are able to get a few of the individuals we’re going after, I believe we could have a extremely good workforce and actually good shot to win the cash.”

Jones has taken the lead on recruiting however he additionally falls underneath that very same class. He performed the 2021 season in Japan for the Hitachi Solar Rockers who simply wrapped their season final week.

He’s certainly one of three gamers who’re presently on the Greatest Virginia roster. Basic supervisor and participant John Flowers can also be returning together with Jaysean Paige. Flowers most lately performed in France for Boulazac whereas Paige noticed a stint with the Maine Celtics within the NBA G League again in March.

Former Mountaineer guard and WVU Tech males’s basketball coach James Lengthy would be the Greatest Virginia head coach for the second straight 12 months. Lengthy stated the roster not being finalized is “a little bit uncomfortable” proper now, however he’s centered on how he’s going to handle it as soon as it’s full.

This time round, he desires to seek out the stability of utilizing gamers primarily based on their current skilled stats and the way properly they’re enjoying in TBT.

“As coaches, you prefer to lean on expertise and belief, and there’s not a lot of that in TBT. We had a two-week build-up main into that [last year] and we didn’t have continuity going into it, so simply sort of went off a few of that preparation throughout the two weeks,” Lengthy stated.

“There have been instances I wanted to be higher when it comes to going sport to sport, who was enjoying properly, and having a greater really feel for the second. It’s robust. There are loads of various things going by your thoughts and there’s no room for error. If you happen to lose and make a mistake, you don’t get to do it over that 12 months.”

Paige is the latest addition to the rising lineup. This will likely be his second run within the event after making two appearances in 2019. He was initially on the 2021 roster, however his skilled profession got here calling.

“Jaysean has all the time been a confirmed scorer ever since school. We’re excited to have him. He was one of many guys we knew we wished to get again, particularly after final season since he wasn’t in a position to be part of the workforce,” Jones stated. “He already has Elam Ending expertise from our first 12 months enjoying and he did properly. I stay up for those self same outcomes with him. We all know what he can do. He has confidence in himself and now we have confidence in him.”

Jones stated Greatest Virginia does have a number of different commitments however they plan on asserting them weekly on the workforce’s social media pages.

The 2021 Greatest Virginia roster: Nate Adrian, John Flowers, Chase Harler, Jonathan Holton, Kevin Jones, Jamel Morris (Fairmont St.), Teyvon Myers, Tarik Philip, Logan Routt, Alex Ruoff and Juwan Staten.

The West Virginia Regional will likely be held on the Charleston Coliseum and Conference Heart from July 24-27. Tickets are presently on sale.