Penn students have three weeks until final exams officially begin.
For Penn senior basketball captain Tim Begley, perhaps his most important final exam begins on Thursday.
The subject: basketball.
Begley will be one of 64 participants in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, which kicks off today. The tournament takes places in Portsmouth, VA, and is the only postseason event before the prestigious Chicago Pre-Draft Camp.
The players at Portsmouth are divided into eight teams and the tournament consists of 11 total games. It is open only to college seniors, the majority of whom play for mid-major teams. Consequently, this will be a rare opportunity for scouts from the NBA and Europe to see players such as Begley.
According to one of Begley's Portsmouth coaches, Jim Markey, the scouts dictate who is invited to the tournament.
"The NBA guys put in a list of players they want to see," he said. "That's how the players are chosen."
Begley believes that he was chosen for the tournament, in part, because of his ability to shoot the ball.
"I have a specialty, so to speak," he said. "I'm looking forward to a few good days of shooting the ball."
The difficulty for Begley, however, will be to show the scouts everything he can do, while still showing he can be a team player.
"Everyone's trying to prove how good they are, so it's a difficult situation," he said. "It's not as much team-oriented."
Despite this challenge, Begley vows that he will be prepared both physically and mentally.
Two of his former teammates at Penn -- Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong -- played at Portsmouth in 2003. Begley said that he still keeps in touch with Archibong and that he would e-mail him for some last minute advice.
Physically, Begley should also feel confident. After Penn's season ended in a loss to Boston College in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Begley took only two days off from basketball. He then began a regimen of working out and playing one-on-one and two-on-two games to fine-tune his skills. In addition, Begley has been trying to improve his quickness and strength in order to compete with the high caliber of talent at Portsmouth.
"I'd like to go down and show I can play with some people even if they're from bigger conferences and schools," he said.
The competition will indeed be stiff, as Louisville's Larry O'Bannon, Duke's Daniel Ewing and Vermont's Taylor Coppenrath are just a few of the big names slated to play. In addition, Begley will see some familiar faces in Pat Carroll of Saint Joseph's and Judson Wallace of Princeton.
One of Begley's teammates on the Beach Barton Ford team will be Jackie Manuel, a member of North Carolina's NCAA championship squad. Begley said his housemates were giving him a hard time during the championship game Monday night, knowing he would be lining up alongside Manuel in several days.
Despite the amount of talent that will be participating in the tournament, the odds of getting drafted are slim.
"Maybe six or eight guys [of the 64] will get drafted," Markey said. "The majority of them in the second round."
Realistically, an impressive performance at Portsmouth might earn a player an invitation to the Chicago camp, where Europeans and college underclassmen are also allowed to participate.
"On average, at least 10 or 12 guys get invites to Chicago [after Portsmouth]," Markey said.
Despite the long odds of making it to the NBA, Begley is excited to have the opportunity to be showcased at Portsmouth and have the chance to continue his basketball career. He's decided to pursue basketball at least for the immediate future after graduation.
"I'm going to devote most of my time and energy to giving this whole professional basketball thing a shot," he said. Begley added that he will be able to talk to agents at Portsmouth about the possibility of playing professional basketball in a minor league in the United States or in Europe.
For now, however, Begley is just enjoying playing meaningful games against top-flight competition.
"I don't think I'm the cockiest guy on the court, so I'm going to enjoy playing aside guys who played on the biggest stage of the game," he said. "It's a unique experience."
