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The Utah Utes won't return to the Huntsman Center until winter, but that doesn't mean some of their alumni won't be active this summer.

Team Utah, which is led by former Utes Shaun Green and Tim Drisdom and includes five additional former Utes, will compete for $2 million in The Basketball Tournament, a free of charge open-application, single elimination, 5-on-5 winner-take-all competition.

The TBT, which is in its third year, has a nearly identical format to the NCAA tournament and has partnered with ESPN to televise its Super 16 rounds and onward for the first time. Its prize money has doubled each year, going from $500K the first year to $1 million last year to $2 million this year.

"It's just nice to have that feeling again: playing for something," Green said. "It's not just a T-shirt in a rec league. We do play with each other during the summertime, so we know pretty much what everyone is going to do."

The full list of Utah alumni includes Lawrence Borha, Bryant Markson and Dakarai Tucker, with Justin Hawkins and Richard Chaney beginning their careers in Salt Lake City before finishing elsewhere.

As one of 16 remaining teams in a 64-team pool and coming off a win over Trevor Ariza's LAUNFD, Team Utah will play the Gonzaga alumni team Few Good Men (boosters include Jazz great John Stockton and Gonzaga coach Mark Few) at 4 p.m. this Friday on ESPN 3 in a West Region semifinal in Philadelphia.

Even though hoops fans have officially hit the dog days of summer and the NBA Summer League recently put a ribbon on the year, TBT is offering a nationwide event unlike any other; a refresher from high-level recreation leagues such as Southern California's Drew League and New York's historic Rucker Park.

"The people that started it, they were just tired of that big gap in between the NBA Finals and basketball starting up again," Green said. "It's fun for those fan bases of like Utah or Gonzaga … any of these schools that are having alumni come back and they get to see some of their favorite players that aren't in school anymore. They can see them again and enjoy the moments they once had in college with those players."

Drisdom, who served as a player-coach last year, hopes to help lead Team Utah to the title game as a player this year. He hopes to further prove that the state of Utah can compete with the nation's best.

"I embrace the fact that people don't take basketball seriously in Utah until they get there," Drisdom said. "To come out of Salt Lake and be the sleeper a little bit — it's interesting because we don't suck; it's not like guys should be surprised, but for whatever reason there's guys don't take us seriously."

"The road only gets tougher, but our confidence level is high," Green said. "So if we handle our business and do what we do, we should be in pretty every game out there. We'll just see how the ball bounces."

Twitter: @HayDayKim