Penn State alums set to launch team in $1 million, winner-take-all The Basketball Tournament
John Harrar was in the 2022 iteration of The Basketball Tournament, a $1 million grand prize winner-take-all summer basketball tournament. Now, in the 10th year of the tournament, Harrar is set to lead a team of former Nittany Lions.
The team, named Happy Valley Hoopers, was announced Thursday morning via The Basketball Tournament’s Twitter page.
Harrar is the team’s general manager and organized the roster. He reached out to several former Nittany Lions and has put together a roster that includes some of the program’s better players in recent history.
He is set to be joined by Tone Carr, Shep Garner, Josh Reaves, Mike Watkins, Curtis Jones, Jamari Wheeler and Trent Buttrick.
The list of accomplishments for the group is plentiful. Carr scored the second most points in a season and had the second most assists in a season in program history. Garner is its sixth all-time leading scorer. Watkins is second all-time in rebounds and blocks for the Nittany Lions. Harrar is fifth in rebounds. Reaves is second in steals and 10th in blocks for his career.
It was Harrar’s leadership that helped pull the team together, however, and he said he did it because he believes in what it can do. Not to mention, some of the players were part of a team that never got to see what it could do.
“I put this team together because I really think we can compete first off,” he told the Centre Daily Times. “We have guys that are perfect for the tournament (because we’re) grinding overseas. We all like each other and never really celebrated that amazing season we had that covid ended (in 2020).”
Harrar told the CDT the response was great when he reached out, and he never had to do much convincing to get the players to commit.
While it’s been a while since they’ve all played together, he plans to give them a chance to iron out the kinks and make sure they’re good to go by having a training camp in State College before the team competes in the tournament.
That would lead into the 64-team tournament that features eight regional locations with eight teams in each. The Happy Valley Hoopers will be in one of those eight regions that will be unveiled in mid-June, shortly after the registration window — April 1-June 1 — closes.
