For the first time since IU’s loss to Syracuse in the Sweet 16 in 2013, IU alumni Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford teamed up in a single-elimination basketball tournament — more specifically, The Basketball Tournament. The event is a nationwide, open-application, 5-on-5, winner-take-all ($1 million) basketball tournament.
The tournament is split into four regions, each of which consists of a 24-team bracket featuring the 18 teams with the most fan votes in that region of the country and six additional at-large teams. Armored Athlete, the No. 3 seed in the Midwest with Hulls and Watford, won its second-round matchup Saturday night after drawing a bye Friday.
Lloyd Johnson scored a game-high 29 points, Hulls finished with 23 and Watford chipped in 18 as Armored Athlete knocked off Chicago Elite 98-86.
“For the first time playing together I think we did a pretty good job,” Hulls said in the team’s post-game press conference, which was streamed on Periscope. “We hit a lot of shots in the first half that got us going.”
The team made nearly half of its shots from behind the arc, as Hulls went 6-of-8 from 3-point range and Johnson finished 7-of-11 from long range. Hulls scored the game’s first points on a 3-pointer from the right wing, and he also made a half-court heave just after the buzzer sounded at the end of the first half, but it was waived off.
“We’re pretty unselfish,” he said. “We don’t care who shoots the ball as long as we win and the goal of this tournament is to win, so I think we’re doing a good job of that so far.”
On Sunday, Armored Athlete faced No. 6 seed Reach 1 Teach 1. Armored Athlete advanced Sunday with a 91-73 win. Hulls and Watford will likely play with their former IU teammate Will Sheehey in the Super 17 — the 16 remaining teams in the tournament plus last year’s champion, the Notre Dame Fighting Alumni.
Sheehey, who’s currently with the New Orleans Pelicans’ summer league team in Las Vegas, recently suffered a hamstring injury, but he’s expected to be healthy enough to play next weekend.
“I talked to Will last night, and he expects to be here next weekend if we make it through tomorrow,” said AJ Mahar, the team’s founder and a friend of Sheehey. “So it’s not like it was too, too bad.
“We’ll see what happens.”
