Kentucky basketball alumni team La Familia defeats Louisville alums in TBT opener
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- La Familia faced The Ville in first game of best-of-three The Basketball Tournament series
- La Familia defeated The Ville, 72-68, in the TBT opener.
- La Familia and The Ville will play the second game of the series Monday in Louisville.
La Familia, the Kentucky basketball alumni team that’s participating in The Basketball Tournament for a third straight summer, is now one win away from advancing to the next round and eliminating a squad of Louisville alums in the process.
The La Familia squad — which is made up mostly of former Kentucky players — defeated The Ville 72-68 on Saturday afternoon inside Historic Memorial Coliseum in Lexington in a thrilling first game of a best-of-three series between the teams in the opening round of TBT.
And the Kentucky-affiliated team came out with the victory despite blowing a 17-point lead in the second half.
Darryl Morsell’s uncontested dunk won the game for La Familia via Elam Ending, a scoring system that uses a winning target score to prevent late fouls and ensure a game ends on a made basket instead of an expiring clock. The target score Saturday was set at 71 points with La Familia holding a 63-59 lead.
Each team had chances to win the game with the score favoring La Familia 70-68 before Morsell, who played college hoops at Maryland and Marquette, won the game with a dunk off Kahlil Whitney’s baseline inbound pass.
“I’ve come across that one. We ran it when I was here at Kentucky,” La Familia head coach Jon Hood said of the winning play. “We had it in the playbook for situations similar to that... It’s three different options and the first one happened to be open. I told Kahlil ‘If there’s something cheap and easy, and you have it here, make sure the ball gets in. We’re not going to turn the ball over. There’s a bunch of action coming behind it.’ Guys executed really well.”
The Ville led 21-17 after the first quarter, but La Familia hit back with a 12-0 scoring run to begin the second period. This featured strong guard play from Morsell. La Familia outscored The Ville 24-12 in the second quarter to take a 41-33 lead into halftime.
The Ville’s bench received a technical foul midway through the third quarter after La Familia pushed its lead to 46-35, and the Memorial Coliseum crowd got plenty excited by that exchange. But it was a moment later in the third period when the building reached its loudest volume of the day.
DeAndre Liggins capped a beautiful offensive passing sequence by La Familia, finding Whitney with a mid-air, behind-the-back pass for an open 3-pointer. Whitney knocked down the shot to give La Familia a 55-40 lead, which was the UK alumni squad’s largest lead of the game at that point.
The hosts entered the final quarter with a 60-50 advantage after extending their lead to as many as 17 points late in the third quarter.
The Ville closed that gap in the fourth quarter, though, drawing level at 63 while the Elam Ending was activated.
After the 63-63 tie, La Familia picked up baskets from Morsell and Whitney to move within four points of winning. Morsell connected on a free throw, James Mainor-Bell made a runner and Morsell got the winning dunk to ensure La Familia got over the finish line with a victory.
“We had the great first half, (in the) second half we kind of got a little fatigued, as you can see. But we still had to have the mental toughness to still execute our plays, especially when the game gets tight,” said the 38-year-old Liggins, who had four points and three rebounds in 14 minutes.
Morsell led all scorers with 17 points, and La Familia also got double-digit scoring performances from Andrew Harrison (14), Sean McNeil (12) and Mainor-Bell (10).
Harrison shouldered some of the blame for the way La Familia lost its 17-point second-half lead.
“Me as the point guard, I played not smart basketball in the second half and kind of was the reason that they got back in the game,” Harrison said. “So I’ll be better. The guys that we have on our team are great, everyone gives it 100%, and we know what Louisville is going to bring. They’re a good team. They’re physical, strong, smart, professional. We know we have to bring it when we play them.”
McNeil, a shooting guard, played college ball at West Virginia and Ohio State. He’s a Norther Kentucky native who is from Union and helped lead Cooper High School to the 2017 Sweet 16 state tournament title game. Mainor-Bell, also a shooting guard, was a four-year player at Villanova.
Harrison also took time postgame to praise each of the non-UK alumni on this year’s La Familia team: Morsell, McNeil, Mainor-Bell and Georgetown College product Chris Coffey, who led all players with eight rebounds. Morsell and Coffey each played 37 minutes, which tied for the most among all players.
“Those guys have been here since day one, working hard. You can tell they’re excited to be here, but at the same time they’re not scared of the moment,” Harrison said. “We’re blessed to have them on our team and we wouldn’t have won without them today.”
The Ville saw double-digit scoring efforts from Chris Jones (16), Montrezl Harrell (12) and David Johnson (12). Harrell nearly made a 3-pointer during the Elam Ending that would have won the game for The Ville.
The Ville shot 42.3% from the field Saturday, but made just 21.4% of its 3-point tries. La Familia shot 41.1% from the field and connected on 41.2% of its attempts from deep, shooting better from beyond the 3-point line than it did inside of it. The two teams combined to attempt 50 free throws in what was a physical contest, with The Ville going 18-for-24 from the charity stripe and La Familia making 19 of its 26 free throws.
La Familia held a 35-32 rebounding edge over the visitors, as well as a 15-13 points off turnovers advantage. The Ville scored 32 points in the paint compared to only 24 for La Familia.
This year’s La Familia team is led by both familiar and new faces.
Once again, La Familia’s general manager is Twany Beckham, a Louisville native who played college basketball at Mississippi State and Kentucky. Beckham was part of UK’s most recent NCAA title team in 2012.
La Familia has had a different head coach in each of the three years it has participated in TBT. This year’s coach is Hood, the former UK guard who appeared in 86 games for the Cats over four seasons from 2009-14. Hood, who won the 2009 Kentucky Mr. Basketball award following a strong senior season at Madisonville-North Hopkins, has been a college assistant coach at Kentucky Wesleyan and Missouri Western State.
The Ville’s team was organized by Russ Smith, the former Cards star who also plays for the alumni squad. Smith had nine points in Saturday’s game, but he missed seven of his eight 3-point tries. The Ville’s head coach is Michael Baffour, a Lexington native who attended Bryan Station and was teammates with Smith on U of L’s NCAA championship team in 2013.
Saturday’s game marked the second meeting between La Familia and The Ville in TBT action. The two teams also faced off in the quarterfinals of the 2024 event, with La Familia winning a contentious game at Freedom Hall in Louisville that nearly erupted into a postgame brawl.
The 2026-27 Kentucky men’s basketball team watched Saturday’s TBT game at Memorial Coliseum. Earlier this week, the current crop of Cats played in a scrimmage against the former UK players on La Familia.
Also in the crowd for the contest was UK basketball great Oscar Tshiebwe, who starred for the Cats from 2021-23 and was seated right behind the La Familia bench. Ex-Cat Shagari Alleyne was also in attendance for La Familia’s win.
La Familia was shorthanded for its first TBT game
La Familia was down several players compared to the roster that was initially put together for this year’s TBT run. The squad of Kentucky alumni had been set to include guards Quade Green and Kerr Kriisa, along with forward Reid Travis, but none of those three players will suit up for La Familia this summer.
Green wasn’t listed on La Familia’s final roster, and Travis was ruled out of TBT earlier this week due to a back injury. Kriisa, who played for Mark Pope’s first Kentucky team during the 2024-25 season, was recently indicted on five federal counts of wire fraud totalling more than $2 million.
Additionally, La Familia was without guard Archie Goodwin for Saturday’s victory over The Ville. Goodwin wasn’t at Memorial Coliseum for the opening game of the best-of-three series due to a scheduling conflict, but he is expected to compete for La Familia in the team’s remaining TBT games.
Postgame, questions remained about the status of La Familia center Willie Cauley-Stein, who left the game in the third quarter and didn’t return. Hood said after the game he “doesn’t know what’s going on” with Cauley-Stein and that he wouldn’t know for a little while after the game.
La Familia, The Ville to play each other again Monday
The second game in the best-of-three series between La Familia and The Ville will take place Monday night at Freedom Hall in Louisville. That contest is set for a 7 p.m. start and will be broadcast on FS1.
If La Familia wins that game, the squad of Kentucky alumni will advance to the next round of TBT. If The Ville wins, then a decisive third game in the series will take place Wednesday night at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. A potential winner-take-all game three would take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday and would also be shown on FS1.
This year’s TBT format includes just 14 total teams, with one side of the bracket devoted solely to alumni teams. The winner of the series between La Familia and The Ville will face the winner of a series between Boeheim’s Army (Syracuse) and Hall In (Seton Hall) in the TBT quarterfinals. Following the best-of-three opening round series, the remainder of TBT is single elimination.
The series between Boeheim’s Army and Hall In will start Tuesday night, with additional games set for Thursday night and potentially Friday night.
The winner of the alumni bracket will host the TBT championship game Aug. 2 against the winner of the non-alumni bracket, which features six teams.
Previously, the TBT utilized a traditional, single-elimination bracket format featuring 64 teams, similar to past editions of the NCAA Tournament. The winning TBT team takes home $2 million.
The other alumni teams competing in this year’s edition of TBT are Purple Reign (Kansas State), JHX Hoops (Kansas), Aftershocks (Wichita State) and The Enchantment (New Mexico).
In its first year participating in TBT in 2024, La Familia reached the semifinals of the event. Last year, La Familia was eliminated in the Sweet 16.
This is The Ville’s fourth run in TBT. The Ville’s best TBT result came with a quarterfinal appearance in 2024.
This story was originally published July 18, 2026 at 2:13 PM.
