Blue Collar U is an American basketball team that participates in

The Basketball Tournament The Basketball Tournament (TBT) is an open-application, single-elimination tournament played each summer in the United States. The 2022 edition features 64 teams with a $1 million winner-take-all prize, broadcast by ESPN. TBT was founded in 201 ...

(TBT), an annual winner-take-all

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

. The team consists of professional basketball players, most of whom played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

for the

Buffalo Bulls men's basketball The Buffalo Bulls men's basketball team represents the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, United States. The team currently competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level as a member of the Mid-A ...

team. The team began participating in TBT in

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

, reaching the semi-finals. Blue Collar U won its first TBT championship in its second year of participation in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, winning the $1 million grand prize.

History

2021

In TBT 2021, Blue Collar U played in the Columbus regional and was seeded 6th out of a field of 16 teams.

2022

In TBT 2022, Blue Collar U played in the Syracuse regional and was seeded 2nd out of a field of 8 teams. Players wore the names of the victims of the

2022 Buffalo shooting On May 14, 2022, a mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, United States, at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in the East Side neighborhood. Ten people, all of whom were Black, were murdered and three were injured. The shooter, identif ...

on the backs of their jerseys in place of their own names. They won the Syracuse regional with victories over NG Saints, an alumni team for Neumann Goretti High School in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Friday Beers, and The Nerd Team, an alumni team of

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

and other highly prestigious schools. After defeating Heartfire in the quarterfinals, Blue Collar U won a true

road game A road game or away game is a sports game where the specified team is not the host and must travel to another venue. Most professional teams represent cities or towns and amateur sports teams often represent academic institutions. Each team ...

against Red Scare, an alumni team of

Dayton Flyers men's basketball The Dayton Flyers men's basketball team is a college basketball program that competes in NCAA Division I and the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) representing the University of Dayton in Ohio. The Flyers play their home games at University of Dayton ...

. They defeated Americana for Autism in the finals to win the $1 million grand prize.

2023

In TBT 2023, Blue Collar U played in the Syracuse regional and was seeded 1st out of a field of 8 teams. In the first round, Blue Collar U defeated Big 5, an alumni team comprised mostly of

Philadelphia Big 5 The Big 5 is an informal association of college athletic programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is not a conference, but rather a group of NCAA Division I basketball schools who compete for the city’s collegiate championship. The Big 5 c ...

schools with the largest comeback in the history of the

Elam Ending The Elam Ending is a rules format for basketball. Unlike traditional basketball rules, in which the game is played with four timed quarters, with the Elam Ending format, teams end the game by playing to a target score. A variation used by the NBA G ...

. After defeating Virginia Dream in the second round, they lost in the regional finals to

Boeheim's Army Boeheim's Army are an American basketball team that participates in The Basketball Tournament (TBT), an annual winner-take-all single-elimination tournament. The team's roster consists of professional basketball players who compete outside of the ...

, a team of primarily Syracuse Orange Basketball alumni.

Roster

Awards

References

{{The Basketball Tournament navbox Basketball teams in the United States The Basketball Tournament teams Basketball teams established in 2021 Buffalo Bulls men's basketball