Jay Bilas’ D3 Basketball Tournament
Last year we attended the 2024 Jay Bilas Classic in Charlotte, NC to better understand why a former D1 player at Duke wanted to create his own D3 basketball tournament.
This year, we won’t be able to go in person, but we still wanted to bring you behind the scenes of this unique event.
So we sat down with the organizer of the tournament, Tim Whittle to learn more.
Tim Whittle, now the Director of International Sports Tours for Beyond Sports, spent nine seasons as Macalester College’s head men’s basketball coach, leading the Scots to their best win total in a decade and developing the MIAC’s top scorer in 2016–17.
Before Macalester, he was the top assistant at national powerhouse Washington University of St. Louis, helping win two Division III men’s basketball national titles. His earlier career experience included coaching stops at Sewanee and a stint working in MLB finance. He was a four-year standout athlete at WashU and also holds a Master’s degree in Education.
Tim’s responses to our questions (in bold) are included below and edited for clarity.
Q&A With Tim Whittle - Organizer of the 2025 Jay Bilas Classic
What makes the Jay Bilas Classic one of the best events on the D3 Hoops calendar?
Our goal is always to compliment the overall student-athlete experience. So, to bring together four teams that all played in the NCAA tournament in 2025 is just a start. However, at the heart of the Classic (and why Jay and John started the event and why we were excited to officially sponsor and operate the event) is to be able to build an experience with the banquet, the games and the camaraderie of the student-athletes and coaches competing over these three days.
Why these four teams (TCNJ, Denison, CNU, and Emory)?
With the combination of coaches from the Jay Bilas Skills Camp and teams who have traveled internationally with us at Beyond Sports, this is a great field who have traditionally been top-ranked programs, National Championship caliber teams and coaches who want to provide the above experience to their student-athletes
The four participants in this year’s Jay Bilas Classic.
Do you envision the format getting larger than four teams? What is the future vision for the event?
As this is our first full year operating the event, we are still working on the future of the program. We would love to continue the event and provide this amazing opportunity for DIII student-athletes in the future.
What is it like to help host the event as a former D3 Student-Athlete?
I remember the things that stand out from my time at WashU as a student-athlete (I can hear my kids telling me, “dad, that was a long time ago”) - the experiences, the travels to compete against great teams and programs and enjoying time with my teammates other than just driving to a city and playing games. We hope to continue to replicate that feeling for this year’s teams (competitors and coaches) where this is more than just a tournament, but an experience and one that will help elevate these teams to another level heading into the second semester of hoops!
Thanks Tim!
Want to attend the 2025 Jay Bilas Classic?
Tickets for the 2025 Jay Bilas Classic are on sale now.
Tickets for both days, December 19th & 20th are out now!
You can purchase them here.