What happens when you merge some of the best players from the West Virginia Mountaineers Final Four team with the best of the Press Virginia era and put them on the court against some of the best talent outsisde of the NBA today? We’ll find out this afternoon when Best Virginia begins their quest for the 2019 TBT Championship, as they open the Richmond regional against the Seven City Royalty, a team comprised of Old Dominion alumni.

Juwan Staten, Jaysean Paige, Da’Sean Butler, Kevin Jones and Devin Williams will be starting for Best Virginia this afternoon, and will be joined by John Flowers, Teyvon Myers, Nate Adrian, Elijah Macon and Truck Bryant off the bench. They’ll be coached by Mountaineer great Jarrod West, former WVU assistant Billy Hahn, Morgantown High School head coach Dave Tallman, and Morgantown graduate Greg Richardson.

So what is The Basketball Tournament?

It’s the winner-take-all $2 million tournament comprised of 64 teams. They’re playing in 8 regionals across last weekend and this and will have an elite 8 next week in Chicago.

Is there anything different about it?

• They use FIBA rules for goaltending, meaning players can knock a ball off the rim.
• The game is played in four 9-minute periods.
• They use the Elam Ending, which stops the clock after the first whistle inside of four minutes. From there, a target score is established by taking the leading team’s score and adding 8 points to it. This means every game ends with a bucket.

If you’re not already excited for this, maybe this will help:

HOW TO WATCH

Time: 3:00PM ET

Location: Siegel Center, Richmond, Virginia

TV/Streaming: ESPN3/WatchESPN