Sullinger wants Carmen’s Crew to return for 2023 TBT
A lot can change in three years. Inside Chicago’s Wintrust Arena, the members of Carmen’s Crew were celebrating both a title and a payday. The team comprised primarily of former Ohio State men’s basketball players had just taken home its first The Basketball Tournament championship and, with it, the $2 million winner-take-all check. It was 2019.
Last weekend, TBT returned with a $1 million prize for the winner of the 64team event. But for the first time since 2017, the unofficial Ohio State alumni team isn’t participating. In a social media post made June 7, coach Jared Sullinger announced that the Buckeyes would not be fielding a team and encouraged their fans to support the event at its regional sites.
Sullinger said they were scrambling to finalize a roster before realizing they would have to turn their focus ahead a year.
“We have a lot of guys that was playing a lot of minutes overseas and at the time we was scrambling to try to get enough guys to make a full roster and we couldn’t do it at the moment,” Sullinger said. “We’re going to expand our time and look forward to the next year.”
Carmen’s Crew suffered a first-round upset in the 2020 tournament, which was the first major basketball event to be staged since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, Ohio State’s Covelli Center served as a host site but the No. 1 seeded team of Buckeyes was upset by No. 5 seed The Money Crew in the regional semifinal.
Now, the plan is to return in 2023 but potentially with a different-looking roster.
“We’re going to try to get younger,” Sullinger said. “It’s not really hard (to find new guys) when you’ve got (Ohio State coach Chris) Holtmann bringing in pros every day. You’ve got to give credit to Holtmann. As long as he keeps getting pros and they do all four years and they want to play TBT then they’ve got an open door to us.” ajardy@dispatch.com @Adamjardy