Virginia Announced as The Basketball Tournament (TBT) 2025 Regional
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Feb. 27, 2025 – The Basketball Tournament (TBT), the 64-team, $1 million winner-take-all event, announced today that Charlottesville will serve as one of the regional locations for the 2025 event, hosted by the University of Virginia at John Paul Jones Arena.
Embrace The Pace, the Virginia alumni team, will host as the featured team in the eight-team Virginia Regional. Embrace The Pace will be led by 2019 national champions Kyle Guy and Kihei Clark.
The 2025 Virginia Regional will be played at John Paul Jones Arena on July 18-23.
This summer will be the first year Charlottesville has hosted a TBT regional, and the first time a UVA alumni team has entered the field.
“I’m super excited that TBT is coming to Charlottesville and that UVA will have their first alumni team,” said Kyle Guy. “TBT has become such a great way for players to reconnect with each other and strengthen their bonds with the schools they played at. We’re looking forward to putting out a team UVA fans will be excited about, and I’m looking forward to seeing a packed John Paul Jones Arena in July.”
“We are excited to bring TBT to Charlottesville and John Paul Jones Arena,” Virginia Director of Athletics Carla Williams said. “TBT is an exciting summer tournament which provides an opportunity to welcome back our alumni and reconnect them with our fans at one of college basketball’s best arenas.”
“We are excited to partner with the University of Virginia to bring a TBT regional to John Paul Jones Arena for the first time,” said TBT founder and CEO Jon Mugar. “Kyle is doing a phenomenal job assembling a team that will not only make fans proud but also recapture some of the magic behind the 2019 championship run. We can’t wait to see them compete in front of their home fans.”
Kyle Guy will serve as Embrace The Pace’s co-general manager alongside former Virginia men’s basketball assistant coach Johnny Carpenter.
Guy, who is also committed to playing for Embrace The Pace, starred at Virginia from 2016-2019, helping the Cavaliers win the 2018 ACC Tournament and 2019 National Championship. Guy currently serves as Virginia men’s basketball’s athlete development mentor/special assistant.
Kihei Clark played for Virginia from 2018-2023. In addition to the 2019 national championship, Clark won three ACC Regular Season Championships in his five years with the program. Clark holds the record for most assists and games played in UVA basketball history.
Embrace The Pace will make additional roster announcements in the spring via their social media pages @EmbracePaceTBT. Additional teams playing in the Virginia Regional will be announced at a later date.
The winner of the Virginia Regional will advance to the TBT Quarterfinals on July 29. The semifinals will be held on July 31, and the TBT $1 Million Championship will be played on Sun. Aug. 3.
For the first time, TBT will give each host team the opportunity to have home court advantage for the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the $1 million championship game. Should two regional hosts face off, the tie breaker will be determined by which host sells 4,000 tickets the fastest.
Lexington (University of Kentucky), Louisville, Syracuse, Kansas City, Wichita, West Virginia (Charleston), have already been announced as TBT Regional sites. The final regional location will be revealed in the coming days.
Tickets will go on sale May 6. Fans can sign up for ticket and team notifications at tbthoops.com/tickets/notifications.
For more information on this year’s TBT or the Charlottesville Regional, visit tbthoops.com.
ABOUT THE TOURNAMENT
Founded in 2014, The Tournament specializes in hosting high-stakes, open-application sporting events distributed across the world. Its first property, The Basketball Tournament (TBT), has crowned eleven champions, awarded more than $17 million in prizes, and ushered in innovations such as the Elam Ending®. Launched in June 2023, The Soccer Tournament (TST) marked The Tournament’s expansion beyond basketball. For more information on The Tournament and its properties, visit TheTournament.com.