Best Virginia is on to TBT semifinals following 74-61 victory over Shell Shock
Needing just one more point to reach the Elam Ending target score of 73, James Reese's jumper sailed over the rim and into the waiting hands of teammate J.D. Weatherspoon, who funnelled the ball into the basket to give the WVU alumni team a 74-61 over Shell Shock, a University of Maryland alumni team.
In its sixth season of playing in TBT, Best Virginia is now just two wins shy of winning the $1 million winner-take-all prize money.
'We're not moral victory-type guys,' Best Virginia head coach Jarrod West said. 'I'm not downplaying it, but it's championship or bust. We're happy, but we've not done anything yet.'
Up next is a TBT mainstay. Best Virginia will host Eberlein Drive at 6 p.m. Thursday (FS1) in Charleston for the right to advance to the championship game. Eberlein Drive – winners of the Lexington, Ky. Regional – has played in TBT since the first tournament in 2014, and advanced to the 2018 championship game.
While Reese missed that last attempt, the former North Texas and South Carolina standout was money for Best Virginia the rest of the way. He finished with 24 points on 9 of 18 shooting, his fourth straight game with more than 20 points in the tournament.
Best Virginia, which had appeared in only one other TBT quarterfinal game in 2022, never trailed in the game, but Shell Shock got as close as 59-54 in the fourth quarter before Best Virginia picked up its defense.
Former WVU guard Kedrian Johnson picked up a steal and that turned into a 3-pointer by Toby Okani, a standout on last season's WVU team.
Then it was Reese's turn. He came up with another steal on Shell Shock's next possession, raced down the floor and converted on an and-one three-point play for a 65-54 lead that represented the start of the Elam Ending.
'We were just playing ultra hard and ended up in the right spots,' Reese said. 'We've got high IQ players. If you keep playing hard, you'll end up in positions like that. The ball just happened to find me.'
Shell Shock scored the first five points in the Elam Ending to make it 65-59, but Best Virginia took control from there.
Jarrod West – the son of the head coach – made a jumpshot and Reese turned a Shell Shock turnover into a runout lay-up for Johnson.
Best Virginia's defense also got a blocked shot from Weatherspoon and Okani came away with a steal of his own that turned into another lay-up. Okani came off the bench to score 10 points with six rebounds and two steals.
'Toby's a great X-factor for us,' coach West said. 'He's a flexible band-aid; he can guard multiple positions. With his intangibles — deflections, blocked shots, running the floor — he creates so much for us. His second half was very, very good for us. He's a big piece of the puzzle.'
Shell Shock had 11 possessions during the Elam Ending. It turned the ball over on four of those and had a shot blocked on another.
Eberlein Drive defeated Sideline Cancer, 88-75, and led by as many as 23 points in its quarterfinal. Gabe York, a former Arizona standout, led the way with 23 points. Terrell Brown, who played in the Pac-12 at both Arizona and Washington, came off the bench to add 14 points on 6 of 9 shooting.
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