Boeheim's Army Eliminated in Physical, Intense Loss to The Nerd Team

There will not be a repeat champion of TBT.

Boeheim’s Army is officially out of the race towards $1,000,000 in The Basketball Tournament. The Nerd Team took them down 81-74 with an Elam Ending banked in off balanced three pointer to hit the target score. The seven point margin was not indicative of how the rest of the game was played.

Boeheim’s Army was down 71-52 in the beginning of the third quarter and trailed by as many as 25 in the first half.

The Army struggled to hit shots all afternoon, especially in the first half. They ended the first half 1-10 on three-pointers and 11-29 overall. The only thing they were consistent at for the first half was free throws, where they made all eight attempts.

On the defensive side, they struggled to get stops against a hot The Nerds Team that shot 18-32 overall and put in 9-15 three-pointers.

To be fair, Boeheim’s Army was missing some key players due to injuries. Tyler Ennis was out with back spasms, while Deandre Kane and D.J. Kennedy were out because of leg injuries.

The end of the 3rd is where things started to pick up for The Army, but it also got a bit out of hand. One of which was a technical on assistant coach Eric Devendorf for leaving the bench area. He stepped on the court after a TNT player grabbed Marek Dolezaj.

After going just 1-8 from three point range in the third quarter, Boeheim's Army finally started to get some offensive momentum in the fourth. A once 20-plus point deficit was trimmed to three during the Elam Ending. However, Dolezaj missed two free throws and a layup that would have trimmed the lead to one, and The Nerd Team was able to finish off Boeheim's Army. Tyler Nelson sunk an off balanced three forced up at the end of the shot block that banked in for The Nerd Team to hit the target score of 81.

Matt Morgan led The Army with 19 points, due to his 6-14 FG shooting performance. Behind him was Dee Bost with 17 pts, and Rakeem Christmas with 16 pts. Christmas fouled out of the game during the elam ending after a double foul was called while fighting for position in the lane.

Tyler Nelson led The Nerd Team with 23 points. He made six of the team's 16 threes on the afternoon. The question is whether or not he will be available for the next game (or beyond) after attempting to trip Andrew White in the fourth quarter. 

Should @thetournament suspend @TylerNelson14 for this?
pic.twitter.com/48t84CLYr7

— Mike McAllister (@McAllisterMike1) July 23, 2022

Last year’s TBT champions may have put a valiant comeback attempt during the 4th quarter, but their effort throughout the rest of the game dug them a hole from which they could not get out. 

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