It’s year two of a reconstructed Carmen’s Crew.
Under the guidance of head coach Jared Sullinger, Ohio State’s The Basketball Tournament alumni squad reached the final 16 teams of the 64-team, single-elimination, million-dollar tourney before falling to team Friday Beers in the Sweet 16.
While last year featured a mostly new squad after a tournament off in 2022, many of the same names from 2023 are back for another go-round in 2024. Many players listed on Carmen’s Crew’s roster also know each other from various Summer Leagues and open gyms.
Couple that with some of the talent on the roster assembled and forward Scott Thomas believes he and his teammates could make more noise in 2024 than in 2023.
“I think our chemistry is huge, we play together in the summers all the time,” Thomas told Eleven Warriors. “I think that having a year of experience together with the quote-unquote ‘New’ Carmen’s team from the previous years has been huge. I think any time you get guys that have played together multiple years, you start building a foundation, you start building a little rhythm with guys.”
Thomas is one of the elder statesmen on Carmen’s Crew when it comes to basketball experience, playing for Bowling Green from 2008-12, averaging double-figure points in each of his final three seasons before a six-year career in Europe, five of which were spent in Belgium’s top professional league. He averaged at least 12 points per contest in each of his final four campaigns. Last year was his first with Carmen’s Crew, as with a majority of his teammates.
Joining him are five former Buckeyes, guards Andre Wesson and Keyshawn Woods with forwards Evan Ravanel, Kaleb Wesson and Kyle Young. Kaleb Wesson was a second-team All-Big Ten performer, Evan Ravanel played a significant role for Carmen’s Crew’s TBT championship team in 2019 and Woods won the Icelandic Championship with Tindastoll and was named the Icelandic Basketball Association's Playoff MVP in 2023.
There are other active European players on the team’s initial roster too. Guard Desonta Bradford plays in the Latvian-Estonian League, forward Claudio Penha Jr. plays in Sweden, forward Jamel Morris plays in Italy and forward Jeff Gibbs plays in Japan. Thomas himself plays in Holland. Among former Ohio State players beyond Woods, both Wessons play in Europe and Ravanel plays in Japan.
“I feel like we had a really good experience last year,” Thomas said. “We had a completely new team. Jared and Leon put together a good roster and I feel like we had an opportunity to make some more progress next year, and I think we’ve built a pretty good roster and guys are excited about the opportunity to play for Ohio State.”
That’s what this opportunity brings for Thomas, who originally hails from Ashley, Ohio. He didn’t get the chance to lace up his Nikes for the Buckeyes in college, but for one tournament a year, he gets to don the colors of the team he grew up cheering for.
“I told my friends it’s funny because as a kid from Central Ohio, your No. 1 goal is you always want to play for the Buckeyes,” Thomas said. “My opportunity just happened to come when I was 33 and 34 years old, having that opportunity to wear Scarlet and Gray. For me, it’s a dream come true to be able to play for Ohio State and to represent the team.”
"As a kid from Central Ohio, your No. 1 goal is you always want to play for the Buckeyes. My opportunity just happened to come when I was 33 and 34 years old."– Scott Thomas on playing for Carmen's Crew
It’s through Ohio State that many of the players on the roster know each other, even if that’s not where they all ultimately went to school.
“Most of us have played with each other, played against each other, played in open gyms together,” Thomas said. “It’s fun because these are guys you’ve competed against. For me being a little older, I’m able to come back and play in open gyms at Ohio State and get to know the guys and play with them and play in the Kingdom League in Columbus and different leagues around. Basketball, it seems like it’s a huge thing, but eventually the community becomes really small and you start knowing, ‘Oh, I played in this country’ or ‘Do you know this person?’ You just make a lot of connections.”
With that comes a lot of pride in wearing that Scarlet and Gray ensemble Thomas touted. With a new regime and program identity coming under year one of Jake Diebler in 2024-25, it’s something for fans to get excited about on a few summer nights if the team can go on a run.
“We’re out there to compete and try to win a championship for all of Ohio,” Thomas said. “It’s something fun and we hope that a lot of Ohio State fans are able to travel to Dayton and support something that will be something special and hopefully lead into a new era of Buckeye basketball.”
Where preparing for a tournament setting such as this differs is that every player up and down the roster is expected to contribute and do what’s necessary to win and advance, Thomas said. There’s a mutual understanding about that as professional players.
“This isn’t like college where you have a group of guys with different roles or whatever, everybody on our team is a pro in their respective leagues or whatever it is that they’re doing, or have played professionally at a high level,” Thomas said. “It’s about sacrificing, it’s about supporting each other and realizing the bigger picture is to win the games and win the tournament. I think everybody on our team has the right mindset.”
Carmen’s Crew, the No. 3 seed in this year's Dayton regional, will get its tourney underway against sixth-seeded Purple Hearts on July 20 at 7 p.m. Big Ten Network will air the game.
“I think that we have an opportunity to do something very special with the roster that we have,” Thomas said. “Hopefully we’re able to represent Ohio State and Central Ohio very well.”
