Let’s kick off Thanksgiving Week with a little Maui Invitational to go with your turkey and stuffing.
The Maui is easily our favorite pre-conference tourney every year. There’s something about the endless beach and sunset shots they show us during timeouts, or maybe it’s just Bill Raftery in a Hawaiian print shirt. Whatever the case, we love it and we can’t take the season seriously until the luau music hits our ears. Not to mention that most years there’s some excellent basketball to watch. Our favorite two tourneys right off the top of our head were the year (2001) that Ball St. beat #3 Kansas and #4 UCLA in consecutive nights before finally succumbing to #1 Duke; and the year (2005) that Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison and Michigan St.’s Maurice Ager bombed threes all over the place in a triple-OT thriller.
Our picks for this year are below the bracket.
Day One Picks. Marquette easily over Chaminade. LSU in a low-scoring slugfest over Oklahoma St. Duke runs all over Princeton. Arizona St. surprises Illinois.
Semis. Herb Sendek gives Duke a tough game, but K prevails (9-0 in this event). Marquette’s guards confound LSU.
Finals. Duke gets revenge for last year’s loss to Marquette in the finals of the CBE Classic.