Kentucky basketball players will return to Lexington for a chance at $2 million
The Basketball Tournament is returning for 2026, and the annual event popularly known as “TBT” will once again feature a team of former Kentucky players competing for a seven-figure payday.
TBT officials announced details regarding this year’s tournament Monday morning.
The winner-take-all purse has increased from $1 million to $2 million, which will be split among players, coaches and other personnel on whichever team ends up victorious at the end of the summer showcase.
La Familia — a program consisting primarily of former UK players — is back for another run, and another twist for the 2026 edition of TBT should make for an interesting first round.
Instead of a single-elimination, 64-team tournament, which has been the format in past years, this TBT will feature just 16 teams. Eight of those teams will be “alumni” squads like La Familia — rosters consisting almost entirely of former players from a single college program — and the other eight will be non-alumni teams, with each group competing on opposite ends of the bracket.
And the opening round matchups will now be best-of-three series. Kentucky’s first opponent will be a familiar one: The Ville, a group of former Louisville players.
La Familia and The Ville played in the TBT quarterfinals in Freedom Hall two years ago, a testy matchup that was won by the UK players and spilled over into an on-court brawl after the contest was decided. La Familia ultimately lost in the TBT semifinals that summer, coming up two wins shy of the $1 million prize.
The 2024 game in Freedom Hall also featured an announced attendance of 13,506, which still holds the record for largest crowd size in the TBT’s 12-year history.
This year, La Familia will host The Ville in the series opener in Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, July 18, with that tipoff set for noon ET. The game will be nationally televised on Fox. The second game of the series will be played July 20 in Freedom Hall.
If a third game is necessary, it will be played on July 22 on the home court of the team that sells the most tickets in the 24 hours following Monday’s bracket announcement. Tickets are currently on sale at TBTHoops.com. The second and third games in the series will be televised on FS1.
The winner of the UK-Louisville series will face the winner of a series between former Syracuse and Seton Hall players on July 26, with the title game of the alumni bracket set for July 29.
The other teams in that bracket will have ties to Kansas, Kansas State, New Mexico and Wichita State, which won last year’s TBT championship.
This year’s TBT title game will be played Aug. 2 on the home court of the alumni bracket winner.
While the La Familia roster is still a work in progress, former UK players Willie Cauley-Stein, Archie Goodwin and Reid Travis were confirmed Monday as participants. This will be the third consecutive summer that Cauley-Stein has suited up for La Familia.
“We’ve faced The Ville before and came out on top, and we plan to do it again,” the UK fan favorite said in a statement. “La Familia has what it takes to win this series. We’re prepared and motivated to show that we’re the better team. Louisville should know that we won’t let them get in the way of us winning $2 million.”
Former UK player Jon Hood, a Kentucky Mr. Basketball winner in high school, will serve as head coach of La Familia, with Twany Beckham returning as the team’s general manager.
Russ Smith will lead the Louisville front office and plans to play in the TBT this year. Former U of L players Edgar Sosa and Malik Williams have also been confirmed for The Ville roster.
“These two fan bases are incredible,” said TBT CEO Jon Mugar. “Based on the 13,506 that came out for this matchup in 2024, we expect this to be one of the most raucous sporting events of the summer. Especially now that there’s two million dollars at stake.”
