Why Jacob Pullen and Michael Beasley decided to play for K-State alumni team in TBT
Jacob Pullen got off his flight from Chicago, drove to Overland Park and hopped straight into an open scrimmage in front of hundreds of Kansas State fans on Tuesday.
Taking a break from overseas basketball to play for the Purple & Black, a K-State alumni team competing at The Basketball Tournament, Pullen didn’t disappoint. The leading scorer in K-State men’s basketball history sank his first three three-pointers and put on a show for the Wildcat faithful in attendance.
“It was last minute stuff,” Pullen said. “But when you walk into a gym and see a gym full of purple? Man, that’s my favorite thing in the world. My heart starts beating, and I get goosebumps.
“It’s like being a kid, especially at this age. Now, I walk into so many gyms playing professional basketball, and sometimes, I get nothing out of it. But once you walk into a gym full of purple and get that type of love, the thrill of it just comes back to me.”
On Tuesday night, Pullen, along with Thomas Gipson, Mike McGuirl and other former K-State players, suited up to play at an open scrimmage at St. Thomas Aquinas High Schoo against local college players.
Purple & Black, led by coach and former K-State center Jordan Henriquez-Roberts, raised money through a GoFundMe and a raffle of autographed basketballs at the scrimmage to cover the cost of food and lodging for their upcoming trip to Wichita to play in the TBT.
Last year, the K-State alumni team fell by one point in the first game of the single-elimination TBT, which awards the winning team $1 million.
This year, Purple & Black is a lot different: Pullen, along with Henry Walker, a 6-foot-6 guard who played at K-State and went by the name Bill, and former star forward Michael Beasley all agreed to play.
“Because of Twitter, everybody will think that I was doing the recruiting,” Pullen said. “But it was actually Mike.”
When Beasley first reached out to him to play for Purple & Black, Pullen said no. He uses his summers as a break from basketball.
But Pullen said he couldn’t turn down the opportunity to play alongside his former teammates professionally again.
“Then (Beasley) was like, ‘If Bill play, and I play, will you play?’” Pullen said. “And I was like, ‘If you get Bill on the phone and he tells me he’s playing, I’ll play.’ He set up a three-way call an hour later and Bill was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll play.’”
Walker and Beasley weren’t at the open scrimmage on Tuesday but will join the team before Purple & Black plays its TBT opener at Koch Arena in Wichita against the Lone Star Legends at 6 p.m Friday.
McGuirl is the youngest alum on the team, having just finished his super senior year for the Wildcats. He remembers playing against Pullen in an open gym during his freshman year at Kansas State but has never played with Beasley and Walker.
“It’s pretty surreal,” McGuirl said. “These are guys I watched on TV as a little kid. To think that now, I’m going to play with them in a professional basketball setting, it’s awesome.”
That’s how many of the fans attending Tuesday’s scrimmage remember Pullen, Walker and Beasley. In the autograph line outside the gym, one Kansas State fan saved a program from one of Pullen’s best games as a Wildcat: a 34-point performance to beat Jimmer Fredette and BYU in the second-round of the NCAA Tournament in 2010.
Another fan had named their child Pullen after Jacob.
“This is the type of stuff I always tell my daughter, like, ‘Yeah, I’m famous in Kansas. Everywhere else, I’m your father, and in Kansas, I’m somebody special,’” Pullen said. “Now it’s almost been 10-12 years, so for people to still show up and show out like this, it’s just a blessing.”