Twany Beckham wants Big Blue Nation to #PackRuppOut for La Familia's TBT run
Next month will be a reunion for several former Kentucky players. A reunion inside the building — Rupp Arena, the mecca of college basketball — they called home during their playing careers in Lexington. They’re hoping for a big showing from the Big Blue Nation when they make their return to the hardwood.
Twany Beckham was a member of the Wildcats’ 2012 national championship team and is now the General Manager of La Familia, Kentucky’s alumni team for this summer’s The Basketball Tournament. Beckham helped organize the group, recruiting some of the biggest names of the John Calipari era to suit up one more time at Rupp Arena.
And that’s why Beckham is encouraging the Big Blue Nation to show up and fill the stands. He’s pushing the hashtag #PackRuppOut as a way to spread the message. Kentucky’s new head coach Mark Pope is already on board, too.
“Playing our games in Rupp Arena was a huge bonus and one of the main points of our recruiting pitch to all the guys we was able to recruit,” Beckham said during Wednesday’s bracket reveal. “We want to pack out Rupp Arena for a TBT game.”
Beckham and La Familia will host the Lexington Regional from July 19-23, one of eight regionals that make up the 64-team bracket in this year’s event, which is headlined by the winner-takes-all $1 million grand prize. The current roster is made up of 10 former Wildcats with one more addition on the way: Eric Bledsoe (2009-10), Daniel Orton (2009-10), Doron Lamb (2010-12), Marquis Teague (2011-12), Willie Cauley-Stein (2012-15), James Young (2013-14), Andrew Harrison (2013-15), Reid Travis (2018-19), Nate Sestina (2019-20), and Kellan Grady (2021-22).
“I truly believe we put together one of the best rosters in this field,” Beckham said. “We got size, we got length, we got experience, and we got players who have won here at the highest level while at Kentucky.”
Tyler Ulis has assumed the role of head coach and will be aided by a pair of fellow former ‘Cats, Jon Hood and Sean Woods. Darius Miller is filling in as the Director of Player Personnel with Sam Malone serving as Assistant GM. That’s a lot of blue-blooded hoopers coming back to the place where it all began.
“A lot of these guys have never lost a game at Rupp,” Malone added.
Beckham says the TBT attendance record was set by one of Wichita State’s alumni team at roughly 7,500 fans. With the support of Pope and the new era at UK, breaking that shouldn’t be an issue. La Familia also has plans for a charity game at Tates Creek High School on Saturday, July 13 from 6-8 p.m. EST. More events that fans can attend will be announced soon.
While Beckham is adamant that this is not a “celebrity game” and that his team is here to win, the community aspect of bringing so many former players back to Lexington isn’t lost on him. That’s especially true with the players themselves. La Familia was originally used by Calipari as a way to connect all of his Kentucky squads. Once he left for Arkansas, there were talks of changing the team name. But the message behind La Familia still rings true regardless of who’s leading the program.
“(Calipari is) gone, but we are still a brotherhood, we’re still La Familia,” Beckham said. “We’re still a family, so that’s the reason we continued to use the name. When I connected with Coach Pope, I was at his press conference — it was crazy, by the way — and I just walked up to him and said ‘Coach Pope, happy you’re here, you’re one of us. You played here, you won a national championship.’… And I said ‘Coach, can I get two seconds, we’re putting together this TBT team, we’re playing at Rupp. Can I have a meeting with you?’ And he said sure. At that point I said, this guy gets it.”
La Familia will open TBT on Friday, July 18 at 8:00 p.m. EST against the 305 Ballers. Tickets for the Lexington Regional are now on sale at thetournament.com/tbt/tickets. Let’s make sure to #PackRuppOut.
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