Green Bay files waiver to play in The Basketball Tournament

Green Bay filed for a waiver from the NCAA to allow its men’s basketball team to compete in The Basketball Tournament, the $1 million, winner-take-all summer tournament that features many high-profile college alumni teams and active professional players.

The waiver request, which was filed last week, acknowledges TBT is not certified by the NCAA or falls within legislated exceptions but makes the case it is a suitable replacement for a foreign tour, which permits college programs to travel abroad to play against professional teams once every four years.

“When you play overseas, these teams that go to France, Spain, Belgium, whatever, those aren’t NCAA-sanctioned games,” Green Bay coach Doug Gottlieb said. “So, the NCAA’s argument is, ‘Hey, in summer competition, you can’t play these games in the United States. They’re not NCAA-sanctioned.’ So, if I played this exact same game three hours north of here in Canada, it’d be OK. It doesn’t make sense.”

There is also the cost aspect. For a school like Green Bay — especially as college athletics braces for the House settlement to be finalized — a foreign trip can be cost-prohibitive. By participating in an event like TBT, Green Bay’s waiver request made the case that it would be providing its athletes a similar experience within its means.

“Let’s not worry about the prize money right now, but that could go to a charity, just let us play,” Green Bay athletic director Josh Moon said. “It’s really about our team and trying to give them opportunities.”

The original premise of the rule that allows programs to take a foreign trip once every four years was that it gives every athlete a chance to make one such trip while in school. However, with all the movement in college sports in the wake of eased transfer restrictions, Moon said it’s outdated.

“You’re working in an environment that is still largely built on rules from 10, 15 years ago,” he said. “There’s still massive amounts of legislation that doesn’t make any sense — that hasn’t been adjusted in 20 years or 30 years or who knows how long.”

Green Bay’s waiver request has support from Horizon League commissioner Julie Roe Lach and the organizers of TBT.

“The idea of undergraduate teams or student-athletes participating and competing against retired players or current professionals overseas or any number of other types of teams that we get is really appealing to us,” TBT CEO Jon Mugar said. “We have a long track record of working with and partnering with universities through alumni teams, and now it makes a lot of sense to do that through their actual teams.”

Mugar said TBT has communicated with roughly 10 college programs in the past year with varying degrees of interest in participating.

There is precedent for active NCAA players to compete. In 2022, Jarred Houston, then an active player with Division III Emerson, played for We Are D3, which lost in the first round.

Green Bay filed a similar request last year, but the denial came too late in the process to properly appeal the ruling. The Phoenix went 4-28 last season, the first under Gottlieb, a longtime host for Fox Sports Radio.