Greensboro may have missed out on hosting the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament in recent years but there’s a great deal of excitement about a nationally televised summer basketball tournament that will include a regional in Greensboro this year and will feature some spectacular basketball talent on the team representing this area.
The 64-team event, known simply as The Basketball Tournament, is played each summer across the United States. This is the sixth year of the “open” tournament – that is, anyone can apply to enter a team and compete for the $2-million in prize money.
On Wednesday, May 29, the Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau sent out a press release from tournament organizers that named the players who’ll be on “Team CP3.” Most of the players have local ties.
Team CP3 is so named because it will be led by Chris Paul, the Houston Rockets star who played college ball at Wake Forest. The team will play in a regional round in the tournament in Greensboro that will take place on Friday, July 19 through Sunday, July 21. The Greensboro Coliseum Fieldhouse will be one of eight regional sites.
The tournament will feature a 64-team bracket of professional basketball players, with college alumni teams, international basketball stars, ex-NBA players, future NBA players and others competing in the single-elimination 5-on-5 tournament.
The roster for Team CP3 is subject to change but the list announced Wednesday includes a lot of local favorites with hometown ties and/or college ball ties to the area. The list includes…
- P.J. Hairston, Greensboro, (North Carolina)
- Reggie Johnson, Winston-Salem (Miami, Fla.)
- Diante Baldwin, Greensboro, (UNC-Greensboro)
- Sam Hunt, Greensboro, (NC State and North Carolina A&T)
- Rodney Purvis, Raleigh, (UConn and NC State)
- Dez Wells, Raleigh, (Maryland)
- Aaron Rountree, Wilson, N.C. (Iona and Wake Forest)
- Waymond Wright, Raleigh, N.C. (Virginia State)
- Nate Mason, Decatur, Ga. (Minnesota)
- L.J. Peak, Gaffney, S.C. (Georgetown)
Team CP3’s competition in the Greensboro Regional won’t be known until The Basketball Tournament unveils its 2019 bracket on Tuesday, June 11. This year, for the first time, each of the eight regional champions will earn a prize equal to 25 percent of the ticket sales for that region.
The games will be broadcast live on various ESPN networks, beginning on July 19 with the regional action from Greensboro as well as regionals from Lexington, Columbus and Memphis. The other four regionals will be played the following week in Salt Lake City, Wichita, Syracuse and Richmond. Regional winners will advance to the championship, which will be played in Chicago over the first week in August.
Last year, more than 60 players with NBA experience played in the tournament – including multiple former lottery picks, NBA champions and NBA All-Stars.
In 2018, Overseas Elite – a team of American stars playing in top leagues around the world – won the tournament for a fourth consecutive year, running their record up to 25-0 and taking home $7 million in the process. Overseas Elite will be back this year to defend its title.
