After coming up just short a year ago, Blue Collar U is your 2022 TBT Champions. The Basketball Tournament (TBT) is a winner-take-all, $1 million dollar 64-team tournament consisting of all different kinds of teams. Blue Collar U is an alumni team, made up primarily of University at Buffalo alumni. They made the city of Buffalo proud on Tuesday, winning the TBT 89-67 over Americana for Autism.

CJ Massinburg, the 2019 MAC Player of the Year, was named the TBT Tournament MVP, and Wes Clark and Nick Perkins were named to the All TBT Team. He scored 18 to go along with 8 rebounds and 8 dimes in the final game. Clark scored 17 and had 7 rebounds and 4 assists, while Perkins finished with a team-high 19.

This year’s Blue Collar U team played for something even bigger than the $1 million dollar prize. They played for, and honored the 10 victims of the racially-motivated, horrific mass shooting just a few short months ago. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, the team as whole approached the TBT about wearing the names of those victims on the back of their jerseys as opposed to their own. The TBT gladly obliged and made it happen.

The gesture was kind, but not surprising in a bit. A group of men who gave so much to the city of Buffalo, bringing multiple championships and memories back to Alumni Arena, gave back in a small way that meant so much to so many. Their play on the court proved that, as they fought for every loose ball, every rebound, every point, and every stop, en route to the title.

Blue Collar U dominated from the jump, opening the game with a 5-0 run and never looking back. They led 25-13 at the end of the first quarter and won each of the next three before Montell McRae two-handed jam ended the game in the elam ending.

Blue Collar U advanced to the semifinals in last year’s TBT, it’s first as a team, before ultimately succumbing to a hamstring injury sustained by Wes Clark in the quarterfinals. This year, Clark was healthy, and the Bulls needed it as he scored in double-figures in each of the six games. They are now 10-1 all-time in the TBT.

Blue Collar U opened the tournament with three wins in Syracuse, winning that regional, before ultimately picking up three more wins in Dayton to capture the championship and the $1 million dollar prize.

The team was coached by Adam Bauman, who was an assistant at Buffalo under now Alabama Head Coach Nate Oats. The team’s General Manager was Brian Hodgson, who also served as Oats’ right-hand man at Buffalo and now holds that same distinction at Bama. Tom Fox, UB’s current Director of Basketball Operations served as the team’s assistant coach. Adam March served as the team’s booster.

Dontay Caruthers and Blake Hamilton played huge roles for Buffalo in the tournament as well. Hamilton averaged 10.5 points and Caruthers was the glue defensively, as he was during his college career as a two-time MAC Player of the Year.