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Donovan Dent may have gone home to California to play his final season of college basketball, but his time in the Land of Enchantment hooked him.
The former Mountain West Player of the Year with the UNM Lobos, a regular visitor back to Albuquerque while a student athlete at UCLA last season, is coming back again — this time leading The Enchantment, a team of New Mexico alumni in this summer's $2 million TBT (The Basketball Tournament).
TBT on Wednesday morning formally announced Dent as team captain for The Enchantment, which will play in a revamped TBT format that includes a three-game opening-round series against another alumni-centric team, and defending TBT champion, the AfterShocks (Wichita State), from July 20-24 at Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
The winner moves on to a one-game series against the winner of a series betwewn alumni teams from Kansas and Kansas State. That second-round single game will be on July 27.
The new format includes an eight-team alumni bracket with host cities for the first round and an eight-team non-alumni bracket, which will be played entirely in Las Vegas. The championship between the winners of each bracket is set for Aug. 2 on FOX and will be played on the alumni team's home court, meaning the Pit could be in play for some summer basketball.
“It is great to have the defending champions back to defend their crown,” said TBT CEO Jon Mugar of the AfterShocks. “They have an extraordinary opportunity to win another $2 million in front of their home crowd, some of the best basketball fans in America. It is an incredible home court advantage against a very tough New Mexico team. If they make it to the championship, I don’t see them losing in The Pit.”
While the rest of The Enchantment roster is not yet being released publicly, the Journal can confirm the team will be coached by former Los Angeles Lakers star Byron Scott, a friend and former teammate of Lobo legend Michael Cooper, and the team will include predominantly former Lobo players, but there are also confirmed players from New Mexico State and others with New Mexico ties.
Dent will be running a kids camp in Albuquerque in mid-July around the time the team comes to a training camp before the TBT opening round series.
The Enchantment front office and coaching staff include team President Brandon Mason, General Manager Kenny Thomas, Vice President for Operations Kurt Roth, and assistant coaches Preston Laird, Chris Perez, Estevan Sandoval and Dairese Gary.
TBT’s new format for 2026 comes after a record-setting tournament in 2025 that featured more than 500,000 viewers on FOX as the AfterShocks defeated Eberlein Drive in last summer's championship, with the winners getting $1 million.
The championship game last year at Wichita State, where the Lobos play this year, included a championship game attendance record of 9,029 in Koch Arena. TBT drew 85,395 fans in all of its games last summer.
Information on the tournament can be found at TBTHoops.com and information on The Enchantment's roster is coming soon on the team's social media channels.
Reach Geoff Grammer at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.
Continue reading...
The former Mountain West Player of the Year with the UNM Lobos, a regular visitor back to Albuquerque while a student athlete at UCLA last season, is coming back again — this time leading The Enchantment, a team of New Mexico alumni in this summer's $2 million TBT (The Basketball Tournament).
TBT on Wednesday morning formally announced Dent as team captain for The Enchantment, which will play in a revamped TBT format that includes a three-game opening-round series against another alumni-centric team, and defending TBT champion, the AfterShocks (Wichita State), from July 20-24 at Koch Arena in Wichita, Kansas.
The winner moves on to a one-game series against the winner of a series betwewn alumni teams from Kansas and Kansas State. That second-round single game will be on July 27.
The new format includes an eight-team alumni bracket with host cities for the first round and an eight-team non-alumni bracket, which will be played entirely in Las Vegas. The championship between the winners of each bracket is set for Aug. 2 on FOX and will be played on the alumni team's home court, meaning the Pit could be in play for some summer basketball.
“It is great to have the defending champions back to defend their crown,” said TBT CEO Jon Mugar of the AfterShocks. “They have an extraordinary opportunity to win another $2 million in front of their home crowd, some of the best basketball fans in America. It is an incredible home court advantage against a very tough New Mexico team. If they make it to the championship, I don’t see them losing in The Pit.”
While the rest of The Enchantment roster is not yet being released publicly, the Journal can confirm the team will be coached by former Los Angeles Lakers star Byron Scott, a friend and former teammate of Lobo legend Michael Cooper, and the team will include predominantly former Lobo players, but there are also confirmed players from New Mexico State and others with New Mexico ties.
Dent will be running a kids camp in Albuquerque in mid-July around the time the team comes to a training camp before the TBT opening round series.
The Enchantment front office and coaching staff include team President Brandon Mason, General Manager Kenny Thomas, Vice President for Operations Kurt Roth, and assistant coaches Preston Laird, Chris Perez, Estevan Sandoval and Dairese Gary.
TBT’s new format for 2026 comes after a record-setting tournament in 2025 that featured more than 500,000 viewers on FOX as the AfterShocks defeated Eberlein Drive in last summer's championship, with the winners getting $1 million.
The championship game last year at Wichita State, where the Lobos play this year, included a championship game attendance record of 9,029 in Koch Arena. TBT drew 85,395 fans in all of its games last summer.
Information on the tournament can be found at TBTHoops.com and information on The Enchantment's roster is coming soon on the team's social media channels.
Reach Geoff Grammer at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.
Continue reading...
