It started with a conversation between a Purdue alum and a former Boilermaker basketball player. And soon, the Men of Mackey were born.
That’s how Ryan Kay describes the genesis of a Purdue-centric hoops team that will compete in The Basketball Tournament (TBT) this summer.
“That’s the way this kind of happened,” said Kay, a 2009 Purdue graduate who is the general manager of the Men of Mackey, an ideal team moniker that pays homage to one of the top home courts in America. “I'm the chairman of finance on the Purdue Alumni Board down on campus, but I've been pretty involved with the Purdue Alumni Club in Fort Wayne where I work. And one of the things I've done is run the scholarship fundraiser golf outing for the last seven to 10 years.
“The speaker that I had come up last summer was Grady Eifert. And I was talking to him after he gave a speech and asked why Purdue didn’t have a team in the TBT.”
One thing led to another. And now, the roster for the Men of Mackey is taking shape and gearing up for this summer's TBT. The Men of Mackey recently tweeted videos (@PurdueTbt) to announce some roster members. There’s Ryan Cline, Rapheal Davis, P.J. Thompson, Isaac Haas, Grady Eifert and Jon Octeus. Those six former Boilermakers are locked in for now for what’s hoped to be a 10-man roster. Haas and Octeus played in the TBT last summer for other teams.
“I think it will be great to play with some former players,” said Thompson, who along with Eifert is a GA with the current Purdue team. “And I think it will be good to just get Purdue’s name out there. We’ve seen other schools do this in the TBT. We wanted to give Purdue a chance to get its name out there and compete.”
According to Kay, other Boilermakers are interested in joining—schedules permitting amid the pandemic—a dipped-in-gold-and-black team that will take part in TBT for the first time. Before then, a coach also must be found. The Men of Mackey hope to have a coach and the roster filled out by mid-June. But a lot is up in the air as the team must wait to see what happens with NBA and G-League seasons before finalizing a roster that probably will include a few non-Purdue players. The Men of Mackey hope to do a minicamp for a few days immediately before their first game.
“We've got probably another 10 guys out there that are either on the fence about playing with us, or that would like to play with us,” said Kay, a Fort Wayne native who works as a certified financial planner and had no tie to the Purdue hoops team while in school. “We're kind of waiting to see if the on-the-fence guys decide to join first before we offer roster spots to others.”
TBT is a 64-team, winner-take-all event that has been held since 2014. The TBT selects the field from an application pool. This year’s event—with games airing live across ESPN networks—is slated to begin July 23 and will feature eight regions with Purdue applying to play in the Columbus, Ohio, region. The quarterfinals, semifinals and title game will take place in Dayton, Ohio, beginning August. 6. The $2 million winner-take-all championship game is August 11.
According to Kay, there basically are two types of teams in the TBT:
• Alumni-based teams
• All-star teams
“The team that's been really, really successful in previous TBTs is called Overseas Elite,” said Kay. “And what they do is kind of pick the best overseas players and put them on one team.
"The Number One thing TBT is about is trying to grow their audience right now. And even though they're on ESPN, not everyone's super familiar with TBT."
TBT takes three things into consideration when it decides who's going to be on a team, and who will be in the tournament, according to Kay.
• Fan following
• Reliability of players to show up
• Talent/quality of players
"They will tell you that the Number One thing out of those three that's far more important than others is the fan following,” said Kay. “So, with the fan following that Purdue basketball has and Purdue in general, there's no doubt in my mind that they would choose us to be in the field.”
Now, the Men of Mackey want to win the event.
“If we win, the money will be split evenly,” said Kay. “But it doesn’t have to be. If there's an allocation to me as the GM, I'll be donating all of my potential money to Tyler Trent's research and endowment fund at Purdue. And I have asked all the guys if they would be interested or willing to donate a portion of their funds to Tyler's endowment if we do win. And everyone's bought into that.”
Thompson is ready to go.
“It's cool to have everybody get back together,” said Thompson. “We don't get to see Jon Octeus too much. … Being able to hang out with him, Raph is like my big brother, and to get back with Isaac and Cline. I see Grady every day, so I’m not excited to see him.
“I practice with the current guys all year,” said Thompson. “I’m ready to go.”
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