Fraternities on 36 campuses, including the University of Minnesota, find competition and camaraderie in the intramural Greek Basketball Association

For students searching for a community via basketball, the University of Minnesota  offers leagues, including 3v3 and 5v5, through the RecWell. But some have found that their fraternities can pave the way to connection on the court. 

In 2022, Indiana University student Michael Bales created The Greek Basketball Association (GBA) which last year was boosted by a partnership with Mark Cuban. Now, fraternities at the University of Minnesota are competing with others in a league that includes 36 schools across the country. 

Many participants of these fraternities joined for a chance to play a higher level of competition and do that with their  Greek brothers. Tanner Conklin, a member of Theta Chi, Alpha Pi chapter at the University of Minnesota, joined GBA his freshman year.

 “I would say that GBA is the most competitive intramural basketball league on campus. All of the fraternities are playing to win every week and people seem to really care about GBA,” Conklin said.

The season concludes with a national championship tournament in Las Vegas in early December, where one team will be crowned the GBA National Champion. 

Conklin said, however, that winning isn’t the main point. “It really does help me grow closer to my fraternity because even though most of our guys are different grade levels, we all definitely bond closely when we are playing GBA,” Conklin said.