Team City of Gods are an American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

team that has participated 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), a 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 advanced to the TBT 2015 semifinals, beating tournament favorite

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 ...

before falling to eventual tournament champions

Overseas Elite Overseas Elite was an American basketball team that participated in The Basketball Tournament (TBT), an annual winner-take-all single-elimination tournament. The team won the tournament four consecutive times: 2015 (prize money $1 million), 2016 ...

. The team played in the Northeast Region of the tournament in 2015, their first year of existence. The team was coached by Joe Connelly III, a former player development coach for the

Washington Wizards The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern Conference Southeast D ...

based in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. City of Gods was managed by former George Washington basketball player Lafonte Johnson. The team featured five players with experience in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA).

History

Team City of Gods was founded in 2015, primarily by Joe Connelly III, who had previously worked as the development coach for

of the

. Connelly, currently a professional basketball trainer based in his hometown of

, has experience coaching public school teams, at recreation centers, and in the

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...

. He is the older brother of both

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

general manager

Tim Connelly Tim Connelly (born ca. 1976–1977) is an American basketball executive who is the President of Basketball Operations of the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He previously worked for the Washington Wizards an ...

and

Phoenix Suns The Phoenix Suns are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Suns are the only team in t ...

assistant general manager Tim Connelly. Connelly chose the team's players primarily because he had connections with each of them. One player,

Michael Sweetney Michael Damien Sweetney (born October 25, 1982) is an American former professional basketball player. He is now the assistant coach of the Yeshiva University Men's basketball team and head coach of the girls varsity basketball team at New York's R ...

, said that "Joe Connelly pretty much put the whole team together". Connelly and general manager Lafonte Johnson, a former

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 ...

player for

UNLV The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the S ...

and

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

, helped gain fans by campaigning on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and other social media websites. Joe Connelly came up with the team name, using a popular Baltimore clothing brand. Connelly also liked how the name of the clothing brand sounded like reaching for greatness and being great. The name helped make the team more popular, which helped gain support and votes in order to enter the basketball tournament and a chance to win $1million dollars.

Logo and uniforms

File:Team City of Gods logo.jpg, Logo, 2015–current File:Team City of Gods uniforms.png, Uniforms, 2015–current

Players

References

External links

Official team page
* * {{The Basketball Tournament navbox Basketball teams in Baltimore The Basketball Tournament teams Basketball teams established in 2015