Red Scare add big name to roster for The Basketball Tournament

Sibert enjoyed two Senior Nights in that 2014-15 season: once in the regular-season home finale and a second one two weeks later in the NCAA tournament. Six years later, he might another chance to play at UD Arena.

The Red Scare, the Dayton alumni team coached by Gruden, announced Friday the addition of Sibert to the roster for The Basketball Tournament. If the Red Scare can win three games in the Columbus Regional, which will be played at Ohio State’s Covelli Center from July 23-27, it would get the chance to play at UD Arena. The final three rounds of the $1 million winner-takes-all tournament will be held July 31-Aug. 3 in Dayton. Tickets are on sale for games at both venues.

“Oh man, for me to have a third Senior Night, it would be incredible,” Sibert said Thursday. “That’s the goal. I talked to (Devin Oliver) earlier, and I told him, ‘Just like when we were in school, if we just compete hard, the results will come.’”

Adding Sibert to the roster improves the Red Scare’s chances. He scored 1,030 points in two seasons at Dayton and helped lead the Flyers to the Elite Eight as a junior and to a 27-9 season as a senior when the Flyers beat Boise State and then Providence before losing to Oklahoma.

“He was the whole reason we made it to the round of 32 with seven guys,” Gruden said. “He was definitely the man on that team.”

Three other key players on that short-handed team will play for the Red Scare: Kendall Pollard; Kyle Davis; and Darrell Davis. Gruden is still working to convince another member of the 2015 team, Scoochie Smith, to play because the team needs a point guard.

Gruden hopes Sibert’s decision might convince Smith to play. He worked the last two years to get Sibert’s commitment in the Red Scare’s first two appearances in the tournament and had texted him every couple of weeks this year to ask if he would play.

“I don’t know what happened with his schedule,” Gruden said, “but he finally texted me a couple days ago and said, ‘I’m in. Let’s do it.’”

Sibert did play in The Basketball Tournament in 2018, teaming with former Flyers Oliver, Vee Sanford and Dyshawn Pierre on a team called the Broad Street Brawlers. The following year, Gruden and fellow Dayton walk-on Jeremiah Bonsu formed a complete Dayton alumni team for the first time, and that team played in front of hundreds of Dayton fans at Capital University in Bexley.

Oliver, Pollard, Kyle Davis and Darrell Davis will be playing for the Red Scare for the third straight year this summer. The Red Scare reached the semifinals last season at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, where the tournament was played in a quarantined environment during the pandemic.

While fans couldn’t attend games last season, they will be there this summer, and the chance to play again in front of the Flyer Faithful was something Sibert couldn’t pass up.

“That’s a bond that that can never be broken,” Sibert said, “If you’ve got the opportunity to give the fans another show, why not? That’s something that we love doing as Flyers and competitors. It’s another opportunity to bring our fans out and make them proud again.”

Since his Dayton career ended in 2015, Sibert has played in the NBA G League and overseas in Greece and Germany. He made his NBA debut in 2019 with the Atlanta Hawks, scoring three points in his only appearance.

Sibert played for Team USA in FIBA AmeriCup qualifying in February, but the pandemic limited opportunities for Americans overseas, so he didn’t play in Europe last season. He’s keeping his options open for next season and hopes to be back on the court playing somewhere. He’s been training mostly in his hometown of Cincinnati this year.

With Sibert, the Red Scare has 10 players on the roster. It added former Flyers Brandon Spearman and Devon Scott and former Ohio State center Trevor Thompson to the roster in May. There could still be more changes before the roster deadline later this month. The 64-team bracket will be announced June 21.

Sibert has played with all of the former Flyers on the roster except Ryan Mikesell and Trey Landers, whose college careers ended with the 29-2 season in 2020. They will play for the Red Scare for the second straight year.

“I’ve actually known Trey since he was young because my brother coached him,” Sibert said, “and Ryan, even though we didn’t play with each other, whenever I came in just to be at the school, we would always talk and had a great relationship.”