MADISON, Wis. – The official name of the preseason tournament is the Greenbrier Tip-Off, an inaugural event being contested in the scenic resort city of White Sulphur Springs, W.V. It might as well be called the “transfer portal invitational.”

All four teams—Wisconsin, LSU, Pittsburgh, and UCF—are being led in scoring by a transferred-in player, a quartet of players whose programs are in first place in their respective conferences.

“I’m excited to go in there,” said graduate transfer John Tonje, who leads No.19 Wisconsin (5-0) at 22.6 points per game. “Hopefully we can try on the red jerseys and get into the flow of an away game, just see how we can bring our own energy, build a routine coming out of a hotel, and make sure we can travel with our brand of basketball.”

The Badgers will play the second semifinal on Friday against UCF (4 p.m./CBS Sports Network) at Colonial Hall inside the Greenbrier Report. Pittsburgh and LSU play in the first semifinal. The third-place game and finals are on Sunday.

Wisconsin tries to play a multi-team event (MTE) every season and has done so annually since 2005 (minus the 2020-21 COVID year). It’s a chance to take a team outside the comforts of home, test them against quality competition, and compete in a tournament setting with a short turnaround between games.

Competing in events in warm locations like The Bahamas, Las Vegas, Hawaii, U.S. Virgin Islands, and in Ft. Myers, Fla., last year, and usually against fields with at least one team ranked in the preseason Associated Press Top 25, the four-team field wasn’t highly celebrated when it was announced or when preseason predictions came in. Only Pittsburgh (seventh) was predicted to finish in the top half of its league, while UCF (11), Wisconsin (12), and LSU (14) were considered afterthoughts.

They enter the weekend a combined 18-0 with each school owning a win over a Power-Four conference team.

Next to the Badgers’ victory over No.9 Arizona, the Golden Knights had the biggest nonconference win when they beat No.13 Texas A&M on college basketball’s opening night.

Like many schools, UCF (4-0) had a roster shakeup with four players entering the portal and bringing in six new ones, including guards Jordan Ivy-Curry (17.8 ppg) and Keyshawn Hall (17.5 ppg). One player who didn’t leave was guard Darius Johnson, who is shooting 50 percent from the field and averaging 14.5 points.

Pittsburgh (5-0) lost leading scorer Blake Hinson, star freshman guard Bub Carrington, and starting center Federiko Federiko to the NBA Draft and the transfer portal from a team that narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament. The starting backcourt of returning transfer starter Ishmael Leggett (17.6) and new additions Damian Dunn (15.2) and Jaland Lowe (13.6) have paced the Panthers, as the trio combine to average 46.4 points per game on 51.0 percent (80-157). Lowe registered a triple-double in Monday’s win over VMI.

Picked third-to-last in the SEC, the Tigers lost four players to graduation, two to the transfer portal and one to the NBA draft but reloaded with three impressive pickups from the portal.

Senior Cam Carter started 70 games the last two seasons with Kansas State and scored 20 points against his former team in an 11-point road win. He leads the team in scoring (17.8) and has paired well with graduate guard Jordan Sears, a first-team All-Ohio Valley selection in 2023 and 2024 at Tennessee-Martin was the only active Division I player last season to record at least 650 points, 140 rebounds, 140 assists, and 75 three-pointers.

Wisconsin is 7-1 in the last three seasons in MTEs and won the 2021 Maui Invitational, the 2023 Ft. Myers Tip-Off. The Badgers finished third in the 2022 Battle 4 Atlantis after losing in an overtime tip-in against No.3 Kansas at the buzzer.

“I think it’s a pretty good team bonding experience,” senior Max Klesmit said of the Thanksgiving tournaments. “You get to know a lot about each other early on. I look at it as a tournament mindset, going into a neutral site where fans will be traveling from wherever their college is coming from. I think it’s a good early test to see how it’s going to be on a neutral floor. There’s no real home court advantage. Everybody has to bring their own energy, whether it’s on the bench or the five guys on the floor. You learn more about one another and who really loves to just play basketball.”

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