Running together: The Enchantment is ready for $1 million TBT tournament

Scott Bamforth has been through this before.

In fact, he’s played in the $1 million winner-take-all TBT (The Basketball Tournament) five times with various teams. That includes making his debut last year with The Enchantment, a team of mostly UNM Lobo alumni that this year has branched out to include former NMSU Aggies and a couple players, like him, who went to high school in Albuquerque before becoming professional players overseas.

But Sunday night, after Bamforth dropped a game-high 24 points with six 3-pointers along with 7 assists, 6 rebounds and won a 3-point contest in a pre-TBT warmup event at Bosque School, the Del Norte High graduate said this with confidence: This year’s The Enchantment team can make a run in the popular 64-team mid-summer hoops event.

“We added some athletes. Brandon (Mason, the team’s general manager) did a good job of adding some pieces,” Bamforth said. “We got some bigs that can really finish, block shots and finish at the rim. ...

“After seeing this (scrimmage) today, I feel like this will probably be the best chance that I’ve had — the best team that we put together, for sure.”

Sunday brought out about 500 fans for the fundraiser event at Bosque. The Enchantment beat the 505 League All Stars, a squad of local city league players, 89-61 before they adjusted the score at the final media timeout to 93-89 in favor of the 505 All Stars. Nevertheless, The Enchantment won 101-98 with the special TBT-specific Elam Ending format.

Some of the new additions for The Enchantment who played well were former NMSU Aggies Johnny McCants and Evan Gilyard as well as Cibola High graduate Christian Cunningham, who won the dunk contest and was the second-leading scorer in the game with 19 points.

The 505 team had some familiar faces, including the likes of former Lobo players like Daniel Faris, Darren Prentice and Devon Williams.

UP NEXT: Wednesday’s first round game for The Enchantment, given the No. 4 seed in the Lubbock Regional, is at 5 p.m. MT (6 p.m. local in Lubbock) against No. 5 Austin’s Own, a team comprised mostly of University of Texas alumni.

The game will be streamed on ESPN+.

SCOTTY B FOR 3: Bamforth beat former Lobo Jamal Fenton in the finals of The Enchantment 3-point contest, 11-6, then beat 505 League All Star champion Damian Salas, an assistant coach of the Valley High girls basketball team, 11-7.

DON’T JUDGE ME: In a gym of New Mexico who’s-who of hoops, Mason asked three people to be the judges of the slam dunk contest: Highly-recruited Los Lunas High School star Jalin Holland, La Cueva and UCLA graduate Bryce Alford and ... an old, unable to dunk reporter from the Journal.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

Alford, who is back in Albuquerque for the week to host a four-day basketball camp at La Cueva High School, is a 3-point shooting specialist, who when he sat down next to the sports reporter, he had a quick question.

“Which one of us is less qualified to be judging a dunk contest?”

Alford’s youth camp at La Cueva High School runs Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for kids in 3rd through 9th grades and registration is open until it starts. Visit BryceAlfordBasketballCamp.com for information.

CHIPPING IN: The Enchantment is holding a Monday night fundraising dinner at Lava Rock Brewing.

Doors open at 6 p.m. with a cost of $25 per person.