Chattanooga Trenches headed for ‘The Basketball Tournament’

The Basketball Tournament is almost here …No, I’m not talking about just any tournament.  I’m talking about The Tournament …. It’s a 64 team tournament sponsored by ESPN with a 2 million dollar grand prize, and this year a team representing Chattanooga will be competing…..

“The competition is real high. You got NBA players. You got overseas guys. You got guys that just came out of college that didn’t get a job playing pro somewhere, so you know all these guys are hungry to play professional basketball,” said Fred Sturdivant.

Meet the Chattanooga Trenches…. the team is made up of guys from all over the Scenic City that grew up playing against each other and are now getting the chance to team up for the first time….

“We got that close bond. We know each other’s game.  The main thing is to play defense. The offense will come,” said Randall Smith.

The Trenches have seen Chattanooga get behind them. They couldn’t have punched their ticket into the tournament without thousands of votes, and D1 Chattanooga has even gotten involved letting them workout there.

“It is really bigger than us. You know for the most part, it is just trying to shed light on Chattanooga and let people know that we have great players at UT Chattanooga in the city and shed and just shed some light on Chattanooga, Nooga strong,” said Dontay Hampton.

“This all business now man. You know we playing for the city of Chattanooga. This ain’t no rinky dink bx league or no YMCA league. We playing in something big, and we going to be on ESPN, so we trying to show the world what Chattanooga basketball is all about,” said Christian Collins.

This chance to play on ESPN in the tournament is about a lot more than just the money to all of the members of the Trenches, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking about what winning 2 million dollars could mean…..

“Winning 2 million for me, I got to pay back a little school debt then getting a car.”

“Probably go take care of my mom and them, get them a little piece of it. Let them do whatever they want to do, probably buy a car and some property.”

“First thing I’ll do is pay back my student loans, clear my credit score, buy me a car, and probably sit on the rest.”