Team Heartfire wins $1,000,000 prize at The Basketball Tournament

Davin White made a shot worth a million dollars on Thursday night at Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center.

White, a former guard for Cal State Northridge, made the layup as a member of Heartfire, the winners of The Basketball Tournament.

The 64-team, eight-region, single elimination tournament with a $1,000,000 prize, held its championship in Philadelphia on Thursday. Heartfire walked out of the DAC substantially richer after defeating Bleed Green, 78-73, thanks to White’s layup.

“There’s a lot of emotions going through me right now,” White said. “For Coach to believe in me to put the ball in my hand at the end of the game, for me to take that final shot. It felt good, man.”

Both teams were seeded second in their respective regionals, and each were making their first-ever appearance in the final. Bleed Green, a group of mostly North Texas alumni whose name comes from their school motto “Mean Green”, were the victors of the Lubbock Regional. Heartfire, a team sponsored by MedImpact, a pharmacy benefit management company, won the Wichita 1 regional.

The championship marked TBT’s return to Philadelphia, almost 10 years after it was started here in 2014.

TBT is contested by NCAA rules — with some exceptions, including the fact that the game is broken into four nine-minute quarters. But the most crucial difference is TBT’s use of the Elam Ending, which meant even though the final score was by a five point margin, it still came down to White’s shot.

» READ MORE: What to know about TBT, the $1 million, winner-takes-all hoops tournament that will be decided at Drexel

Under the rules of the Elam Ending, sometimes called “final target score,” the game clock is completely turned off following the first dead-ball whistle with four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter (though the shot clock remains). From there, a “target score” of eight points higher than the leading team’s current score is set. The first team to meet that score wins.

The Elam Ending was used in the 2020 NBA All-Star game, with the target score automatically set at 24 to honor Kobe Bryant, and the NBA G League adopted the rule last year as its overtime format.

At that point on Thursday, Heartfire was leading 70-64, making the target score 78. While Bleed Green made it interesting by drawing a few fouls — under Elam rules, non-shooting fouls result in one free throw and possession returned — Heartfire’s victory was never really in doubt.

Eric Griffin was named MVP, leading Heartfire with 23 points and seven boards. The 6-foot-8 forward out of Campbell University made the highlight reel early with a poster dunk in the first half.

Marcus Hall, Heartfire’s captain, set the all-time scoring record for TBT in the semifinals and padded his record with 10 points on Thursday.

“It feels even more amazing because of the people that I’ve been with,” Hall said. “We kept talking about fighting through adversity. We fought every single thing they threw at us. Coach kept leading us closer to God, and everything took care of itself.”

Heartfire seized the lead quickly, capitalizing on three Bleed Green turnovers in the first half. For Bleed Green, Kai Huntsberry led with 23 points and Brandon Jefferson contributed 17, but it wasn’t enough to combat Heartfire’s shooting — the winners shot 52.9% from the field, while Bleed Green shot 41.1%.

“Leadership takes guys who are willing to be led. And these guys are that way,” said Heartfire’s head coach, LaPhonso Ellis. “You gotta have guys who are willing to buy into that. But the cool part about it, the thing is, they’re that way just in and of themselves. So again, high character guys who are about it. And they’re fun, too.”

Ellis spent 11 years in the NBA after a standout college basketball career at Notre Dame.

TBT started in 2014, the brainchild of Jonathan Mugar and Dan Friel. In its first year, the opening rounds of the tournament were contested right here in Philadelphia, in the gymnasium of Jefferson University (then known as Philadelphia University). The championship game that year was held on Boston University’s campus, however, so this Thursday was the first time the prize money has been doled out in the city where it all began.

“Philly, beautiful city,” White said.

Only 17 people — including Mugar — showed up to the TBT’s first-ever game. The environment was definitely different in the Daskalakis Athletic Center on Thursday.

“They’ve done a great job with their locations, each round,” Hall said.

And now that the check has been cut, what will they do with their share of the prize money? Turns out, not much.

“I’m a frugal guy,” Hall said. “Same,” added White.

“We all got kids,” Griffin said.

The waitlist is already open for tickets to next year’s iteration of TBT. Plus, TBT Enterprises also launched “The Soccer Tournament” this past June, an annual seven-on-seven soccer tournament also with a $1 million prize.