The Nerd Team passed the first test.

The collection of players from high-academic institutions, the brain child of Amherst College’s Matt Goldsmith and Aaron Toomey, schooled Happy Valley Hoopers, a Penn State alumni team, 54-49 in the opening round of The Basketball Tournament on Monday at The OnCenter in Syracuse, N.Y.

The No. 3 seed Nerds held the No. 6 Nittany Lions to just three points in the first quarter, the lowest ever in a TBT quarter, and led 17-3.

“We have a pretty versatile group. We were switching pretty aggressively. We got into help side positions pretty well, and we were communicating well,” said Goldsmith, the head coach at The College of New Jersey. “They were missing shots, but they were contested.”

Happy Valley stormed back with 17 in the second to shave its deficit to six at halftime 26-20. Sam Sessoms exploded for 28 points and put Happy Valley ahead 46-44 to trigger the Elam Ending, which turns off the game clock and instead places a target score eight points higher than the leading team’s on the board.

The Nerd Team outscored Happy Valley 10-3 over that final stretch to secure its second consecutive opening round victory. Prentiss Hubb, a Notre Dame product, hit the game-ending floater that pushed the Nerds over the finish line. He scored a team-high 16 points.

“This tournament is different from every other tournament. Being here before and having some success in the past, we went to a lot of the guys on the roster that played with us last year and did it successfully and relied on their experience to get it done,” Goldsmith said.

Desi Washington, who played at Delaware State and St. Peter’s, added eight points and eight rebounds, while LIU Brooklyn product Raiquan Clark contributed 11 points.

Northampton native Willy Workman, a national champion at Amherst College that plays professionally in Israel, grabbed six rebounds to go along with two points and two  assists.

Former UMass forward Trent Buttrick, who transferred from Penn State, had three points and two rebounds for Happy Valley.

The Nerd Team pounded Happy Valley with 30 points in the paint and benefited from 20 bench points and 16 on the fast break. They’ll face No.2 Boeheim’s Army, the Syracuse alumni squad that they knocked out last year in the same round, which rolled No. 7 Team Gibson 99-83 in the opening round. 

“Of course we’re looking forward to it. To play the host school, the crowd is always biggest when they’re playing,” Goldsmith said. “It’s going to be awesome to be in that environment. To be the road underdog in a hostile environment there’s nothing like it. It’s what you play for, its what you coach for.”

Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.]]>