JHX Hoops’ run through The Basketball Tournament is suddenly staring at a much bigger stage.
The Kansas alumni team is one win away from the championship game and a shot at the $2 million prize after knocking off the defending champions, 64-59, in Wichita on Tuesday. That result got buried under the postgame fight, but the bigger picture is hard to miss: the KU alumni are rolling, and their backcourt has been driving the whole thing.
Zeke Mayo has put together back-to-back 25-point games. Frank Mason III has delivered three straight Elam Ending game-winners, becoming the first player to do that in TBT since 2019.
And Washburn alumnus Jacob Hanna has brought the kind of defense that keeps possessions alive and opponents uncomfortable. Together, that trio has powered JHX’s best run in the event, even with Marcus Garrett - one of the summer’s biggest additions - still out of the mix.
The victory over the AfterShocks also came with a depleted roster after a wave of midgame ejections.
Now the challenge gets even steeper. JHX leaves Kansas for the first time this summer on Wednesday and heads to Historic Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky, where it will face Kentucky alumni team La Familia.
Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. Central time, and the game will air on FS1.
The winner moves on to the championship game and gets to host it, facing whoever survives Thursday’s non-alumni final.
La Familia earned that hosting edge by finishing atop TBT’s home-court advantage rankings, and it’s back in the Final Four for the second time after reaching that stage in its first season in 2024.
The Kentucky alumni have a recognizable face at the top of the roster in Willie Cauley-Stein, the 7-foot, seven-year NBA veteran who is originally from Olathe. But their path this far has been built on more than one name. Archie Goodwin didn’t play in their first two games, then erupted for 22 points in the rubber match against Louisville alumni team The Ville and followed that with 30 points, including five 3-pointers, in Sunday’s 70-66 win over Syracuse alumni team Boeheim’s Army.
Darryl Morsell has also been a major piece, averaging 14 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. He’s a non-alumni addition who played at Maryland and Marquette. Andrew Harrison, one half of the highly touted twins from the 2013 recruiting class, has been another key contributor, even though his best performance - 19 points and four assists - came in a 20-point loss to The Ville at Freedom Hall.
La Familia’s roster also features guards Deandre Liggins, James Mainor-Bell and Sean McNeil; small forward Kahlil Whitney, who hit the Elam Ending game-winner against Boeheim’s Army; power forward Chris Coffey; and center Marcus Lee. The team is managed by Twany Beckham and coached by Jon Hood.
“Kentucky’s a good team,” JHX coach Sherron Collins told Kansas Nation on Monday night. “They’re going to guard, they’re long, they got some shooters.
They got kind of everything that you need. So we’ll get to the film, we’ll watch them and we’ll go prepare and be ready for them.
But it’s going to be a tough game and an even tougher atmosphere.”
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JHX Hoops Survived AfterShocks But That's Not Why Kansas Is Talking
The alumni bracket run for JHX Hoops had all the usual TBT drama, but the bigger story out of Sunday was how quickly a heated game turned into a survival test. A second-quarter altercation sent multiple players to the sideline for good, and from there both teams were forced to play the rest of the way with just six available bodies, turning every possession into a grind and every mistake into a bigger deal.
Sherron Collins said the officials handled the ejections fairly, and Kansas fans will care less about the chaos than about what it means next: JHX Hoops is still alive and moving on with a chance to keep the alumni run going. The next challenge comes against Kentuckys alumni team, and after a game like this, the Jayhawks know the margin for error in this tournament can disappear fast. [Read more 🡒]
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Kansas State still stands out as the one trip that can define the whole thing. Lance Leipold has yet to solve that rivalry, and Kansas has not won it since 2009, which gives the matchup its own weight before anyone even starts talking about personnel. With Collin Klein now in the picture on the other sideline, the game already carries the feel of the biggest one on the calendar, even if the final shape of both teams is still months from being clear. [Read more 🡒]