To make it to the TBT Championship, La Familia took down alumni teams from Louisville, Syracuse, and Kansas. Even though Sunday’s game is vs. the winner of the non-alumni bracket, Davis Steel, there is plenty of history between the two sides — and maybe even a little bad blood.
Davis Steel advanced to the championships last night with a win over The Mecca. If Davis Steel sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s a Kentucky-based company, manufacturing tubing and chain-link fencing in Russell Springs. This isn’t the first time they’ve sponsored a TBT team. Davis Steel sponsored La Familia, Kentucky’s alumni team, for years, but this year, brothers Ashley & Adam Davis decided to back a different team: the one that knocked La Familia out of the tournament last summer, Eberlein Drive.
Eberlein Drive was one of the original TBT teams dating back to the event’s founding in 2014. After beating La Familia in the third round last year, they made it all the way to the championship game before losing to the AfterShocks, the Wichita State alumni team. Jacob Hirschmann was Eberlein Drive’s general manager for 12 years before the Davis brothers took over. He called KSR on Wednesday to explain how it all happened.
“Basically, the long and short of it is, after we knocked off La Familia last year, the Davis brothers approached us and said they just wanted to potentially have a team with their own name on it. They approached us, and Eberlein Drive rebranded as Davis Steel.”
Archie Goodwin played for Eberlein Drive for four years, helping them reach the semifinals in 2024, before switching sides to La Familia in 2025. Goodwin lost the first matchup against his old team last year; with $2 million on the line, I have a feeling he will be in peak form on Sunday, which is saying something. Goodwin leads TBT in scoring with 26.7 points per game. He’s hit two Elam endings in three games after joining the team late. Fourth in TBT scoring is Gabe York, Davis Steel’s star. The former Arizona Wildcat is averaging 19.5 points per game. Anthony Clemmons, who played college basketball for Iowa, is second on Davis Steel in scoring, with 12.0 points per game. DJ Rodman, Dennis Rodman’s son, is also on the roster, averaging 8.0 points per game.
Davis Steel’s third-leading scorer is Kentucky native Terry Taylor (10.8 ppg), who hails from Bowling Green and played for Austin Peay. Pedro Bradshaw (7.0 ppg), who played for Bellarmine, is from Russellville, Ky. As Kentucky kids, I’m sure Sunday’s game in Historic Memorial Coliseum will mean something special to them, but probably not as much as beating Eberlein Drive, rebranded by their old sponsor Davis Steel, will mean to Goodwin and La Familia.
Just another reason we can’t wait for Sunday. Historic Memorial Coliseum, 1 p.m. ET. Get there and wear white. Or, watch from home on FOX and cheer loud enough they can hear you in Lexington.