Yup, Travis Diener is still on Marquette's alumni team as they seek another title in The Basketball Tournament

The Marquette alumni team is running it back in The Basketball Tournament this season.

The Golden Eagles will be playing in the 64-team, $1-million, winner-take-all bracket with a lot of the same faces from their previous seven entries in the popular summer event.

Travis Diener, the 40-year-old-but-seemingly-ageless sharpshooter, will look to add to his TBT legend after hitting clutch shot after clutch shot in winning the prize money in 2020. Jamil Wilson and Maurice Acker have been on every Golden Eagles TBT team, while Darius Johnson-Odom is back after missing last year with an injury.

"It isn't so much about the TBT, but it is so much about the Marquette culture," said Wilson, who played at MU from 2011-14. "Getting to see some of the guys I played with, the guys that came before me. Now guys that played after me. Even some guys we brought in and kind of adopted into the Marquette family.

"It's just awesome. We go our separate ways during the year. You hear from each other a couple times throughout the year and things like that. But to actually get together for a couple days, hang out, relive old stories, make new memories. I think that's awesome."

While Diener is the graybeard of the team, 24-year-old Sacar Anim is the youngest. Diener was on MU's coaching staff when Anim arrived on campus, so there are a lot of connective threads that weave through the roster.

"I think we've seen a lot of teams come and go and we've stayed the course with Marquette," Diener said. "And just the bond between guys that didn't necessarily play for the same head coach but there's a bond of putting on that Marquette jersey.

"And we've seen other schools kind of go away from their own alumni and form different teams. We've never wanted to do that. I think nine of the 11 guys are from Marquette and the other two are Milwaukee guys. That's been very true to what we wanted as a roster. I just think it means more when you win a championship with guys from Marquette or even if we lose it's still a bond that will never be broken."

The Golden Eagles will open the tournament Sunday night in Dayton, Ohio, against a team that features Ohio University alumni.

But before that, there will be a scrimmage against the current MU squad that, if history is any indication, will include future TBT players.

"It's pretty intense," Golden Eagles TBT coach Joe Chapman said. "It's pretty fun, too. You talk a lot of trash, obviously. Playing in it previously myself, it gets the blood pumping a little bit.

"Competition is always great. The young guys want to show why they're wearing the colors right now and the old guys want to prove why they don't deserve to wear the colors. It's a battle, but it's all love at the end of the day."

Contact Ben Steele at (414) 224-2676 or bmsteele@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenSteeleMJS or Instagram at @bensteele_mjs

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette in TBT basketball tournament with Travis Diener Jamil Wilson