About Bookstore Basketball

The Notre Dame Bookstore Basketball Tournament is the largest 5-on-5 outdoor basketball tournament in the world. Over 700 teams comprised of students, faculty, and staff from Notre Dame, Saint Mary's College, and Holy Cross participate in the largest extracurricular event on Notre Dame's campus.

The Tournament is entirely student run. It is played every March and April with breaks for Easter and Notre Dame's annual Blue/Gold Football Game. The tournament is played rain, snow, or shine (except during lightning) which leads to many memorable match-ups.

The Bookstore Basketball Tournament consists of two brackets: the Open and the Women. The Open bracket will consist of around 500 teams, while the Women's bracket will have between 45 and 60 teams. All different types of teams play in both brackets. There will be the very competitive teams that want to win it all, but there will be many teams that will dress up in costumes and be happy with playing one game. The top 32 teams in the Open Bracket are ranked through an application process which leads to very competitive games from the Round of 64 to the Finals. These rounds are well attended with almost 200 people watching the finals plus special guest appearances from Mike Brey and Muffet McGraw.

One of the most important aspects of the tournament is team names. Teams put a lot of effort in coming up with creative names that could lead them to be on the Top 10 Team Names released at the Captains Meeting prior to the tournament. Many of the names are based on events, people, and incidents in the pop-culture, athletic, and social worlds.

All the proceeds of the tournament are donated to the Jumpball Basketball Programme. Jumpball is a basketball program for the youth of Jamaica and Haiti. Jumpball seeks to provide an opportunity for youth of Jamaica to participate in a fun and structured program by using basketball to teach and reinforce positive and valuable life skills while also coaching basketball and athletic fundamentals. Jumpball seeks to provide an opportunity for youth to participate in a fun and structured program by using the game of basketball.  The program aims to teach and reinforce positive and valuable life skills while also coaching basketball and athletic fundamentals. See the Jumpball Tab for more information!