TBT Tournament Will Tip-Off Tuesday At WesBanco Arena
Best Virginia Faces Dubois Dream At 7 p.m.; Harler To Return Home
WHEELING - Chase Harler's well-traveled basketball career has taken him to many arena's, both nationally and internationally. The 4-year letterman at West Virginia University has played in Sweden and Lithuania following his days on the court in Morgantown and the Big 12 Conference.
However, there is one place the Moundsville native has never played a game ... WesBanco Arena ... just blocks away from where he was a three-time W.Va. Class all-stater at Wheeling Central standout.
Harler, a 6-3 shooting guard who graduated from WVU in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in general business, will make his debut inside the downtown facility on Tuesday as a member of Best Virginia, a WVU alumni team, when the TBT comes to the Ohio Valley.
"I'm super excited to be able to play in Wheeling," Harler said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "I talked with some people around January-February about the area and the venue about bringing the tournament to Wheeling.
"I know we are going to have a great turnout because people in the Ohio Valley love sports," he added. "For basketball fans that like high-level play, WesBanco Arena is going to be the place to be."
Harler, who scored 409 points and made 75 three-point field goals during his career with the Mountaineers, and his top-seeded Best Virginia teammates are slotted in the 7 p.m. game in their first-round matchup against No. 8 Dubois Dream on Tuesday.
"We've been practicing in Morgantown. We had a camp there on Monday and our first practice was Tuesday," Harler noted. "We had a camp in Bridgeport, W.Va., on Wednesday and we will practice Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Morgantown before heading to Wheeling."
The event has eight teams and kicks off at 2 p.m. with third-seeded Challenge ALS meeting No. 6 Dawg Town (Georgetown alumni). At 4, No. 2 Sideline Cancer faces No. 7 Ram Nation (VCU alumni). The nightcap has No. 4 Herd That (Marshall alumni) battling fifth-seeded Zoo Crew (Pitt alumni).
The semifinals are set for Wednesday at 7 and 9 p.m., with the championship contest scheduled for Saturday at 2 p.m. The West Virginia Regional winner will face the Syracuse Regional winner on Sunday at 4 p.m. with a berth in the Elite 8 on the line. That game will be televised by ESPN.
Best Virginia, which advanced to the Elite 8 last summer, is 6-3 all-time in TBT while Dubois Dream is 0-3.
"Every year we get a little better," Harler noted. "We've got our goals set high for this year."
In addition to Harler, Best Virginia is made up of former WVU standouts John Flowers (6-7 small forward); Erik Stevenson (6-4 shooting guard); Sean McNeil (6-4 shooting guard); Kedrian Johnson (6-4 point guard); Kevin Jones (6-8 power forward); Nathan Adrian (6-9 power forward) and Teyvon Myers (6-2 point guard). Stevenson also played collegiately at Wichita State, Washington and South Carolina while McNeil played his fifth season at Ohio State.
The roster also includes Alex Gross (6-10 center) who played at Olivet Nazarene and Morehead State; Nathan Flowers (6-5 power forward) who played for Oklahoma City and Quincy Ford (6-9 small forward who played at Northeastern University.
James Long is the beach coach of Best Virginia. He is assisted by Payton Sturm and Dave Tallman Jr., who is the head boys basketball coach at Morgantown and a Magnolia grad. Greg Richardson is the general manager.
Dubois Dream also has some local talent in former West Liberty standout Dalton Bolon, who played in the NCAA Tournament last season with the College of Charleston, and former Magnolia all-stater Preston Boswell who played a couple of seasons at then-Wheeling Jesuit University who is an assistant coach.
Bolon is coming off his final collegiate season and second with Charleston where he made his first NCAA Tournament and just the school's second appearance in the big dance in the last 25 seasons. Over those two years Bolon shot over 34% from three point range, and this most recent season he averaged 12.2 points per game.