WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) — Purdue Alumnus Ryan Kay is taking his love for the Boilers to a basketball league you may not be familiar with.
“I’ve been following TBT since it first started,” said Kay via Zoom this week.
Simply named “The Basketball Tournament,” TBT is an open men’s basketball tournament with a 2 million dollar, winner take all cash prize.
“I hadn’t seen my friend Matt for several years...we met for lunch, and he was like ‘you know Ryan you should really think about trying to get a Purdue team in there,’” said Kay.
With Kay as the General manager, Purdue Basketball alumni will make an appearance for the first time ever. Former Guard Ryan Cline is ready to get on the court.
“It's just something that’s gonna be so much fun to be able to get back with these guys,” said Cline.
The Men of Mackey will feature 10 former Boilermakers such as Ryan Cline, Raphel Davis, Grady Eiffert, Isaac Haas, PJ Thompson and John Octeus.
Cline says they’re not changing a thing when it comes to the sharpshooter offense fans have grown accustomed to
“Obviously it worked for us back then, hopefully it’ll work for us now. So we’ll probably implement something like that- something that we’ve seen before,” said Cline.
Former Purdue Forward Grady Eifert says he hopes that the Men of Mackey can give Purdue fans something fans to look forward to.
“I think it’s just about giving back to the fans who supported us throughout the 4 years that I was there. Give them something else to look forward to in this quarantine,” said Eifert.
So who gets the 2 million cash if Purdue makes it all the way? Kay told us the Men of Mackey would be supporting the Tyler Trent Foundation.
“One cool thing Tyler’s Dad told me...he said ‘you know Ryan if Tyler was still alive, he would be sitting in the front row, watching you guys, cheering you on in your TBT games," said Kay.
Barring any schedule changes, Purdue fans can expect to see the Men of Mackey in action towards the end of July.
