This weekend, the prestigious Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions kicks off at Suwanee Sports Academy. Year in and year out, the event sets the bar when it comes to plotting some of the very best teams together into unforgettable match-ups. While the shoe company events have drawn some of its teams away from the annual tournament, this year promises to bring more further memories that we can all look back at down the road.

Gibbons is a special tournament for me. It was the first event that I ever coached in, or, as you could say, attempted to coach in. I am young to the industry but back in 2009, the Ohio Basketball Club gave me a chance to come on board seeing that I bring with me someone that could help the 17-under unit out. So it was, there was a local recruit from the Pittsburgh area that I swooped up along the way and down we went to the Carolina Triangle, both eyes wide open about the opportunity that was ahead of us.

Here I was with this 5-foot-10, suburban-born junior guard who was already committed to Duquesne University but had the chance to gain some traction as a worthwhile name. The OBC squad was missing two of its top guys in top-50 recruits along the likes of Maryland bound Mychal Parker and WVU commit Noah Cottrill. However, there was enough talent to go around for the squad to make a run but throwing a ballplayer onto a team and at the lead guard spot, a unit that had never played with him before and up against the elite of the elite, was a hard task within itself.

The first night opened up against the Worldwide Renegades team out of Georgia that boasted top-50 guard Jelan Kendrick. The sinewy and lanky bodied guard that called Pittsburgh home struggled at first, never playing against such talent before. Sure, the sharpshooter was a killer at home playing in mom and pop travel events but to get ones bearings down in a blink of an eye, it would have been a giant task within itself. We escaped with the W but to say that the tough-nosed guard struggled would have been a giant understatement.

Following that Friday evening session at Reynolds Coliseum, the old home of the NC State men’s basketball team, the newest member of the OBC program kept asking if he belonged at this level and if he could compete against the best. My voice never wavered as I knew, just knew, that he would not just succeed at this level, but also stamp his name onto the scene as a premium lead guard.

The next day was the day that everything changed for him and I believe to this day, altered his perceptions about where he could go in this sport that is basketball. Always a big fish in a little pond that is the city of Pittsburgh, this kid had his moment and in the biggest of fishbowls.

Against the Team Final bunch that showcased such future college stars at Markus Kennedy, Tyrone Johnson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Dion Waiters, Trevor Cooney, and Rakeem Christmas, and at one of the mecca’s of college basketball, that is Cameron Indoor Stadium, the lights shined the brightest on the stars at hand.

While we went down in defeat, the Pittsburgh guard went to work. He looked like Steph Curry before Steph Curry, nailing pull-up 3s near the circle around the D on at the floor at half-court. There he began his story and made whispers of, “Who is this kid?!” He scorched the nets for 28 points off of six made 3s, where the rest of the team scored a combined 18 in all as the 5-foot-10, towel boy lookalike, became a name.

Fast-forward seven years and this kid is no longer a 5-foot-10 guard with a depleted frame with wavering confidence levels. He now has finished his first year in the NBA as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, having become the first NBA player to dish out 12 assists in a game twice within a matter of his first four games of his career.

TJ McConnell became a name that Bob Gibbons Tournament of Champions. It was a special memory of mine and continues to be as he eclipses all of the original perceptions of him. However, McConnell is just one case of a story starting career that began Gibbons.

Who will begin their very own this year? I don’t know about you but I couldn’t be more excited to see who that guy is this weekend in Suwanee.