Next Year's Maui Invitational Line-Up is......well.....something.
- Thread starter bbncal02
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Norlander and Parrish talked on their podcast back when this season’s tournament was going on about how these events are in real trouble. I don’t remember now their reasoning. Maybe it will come up on the next pod now that the field is known.
Meanwhile the Players Era tournament field might be better than the Maui field this past season.
Meanwhile the Players Era tournament field might be better than the Maui field this past season.
Coaches would rather pad those games with cupcakes early in the season rather than come out of Maui with two to four losses.
Yep wasn’t it UConn that lost 3 games down there this year?
I read not too long ago that the field is going to be getting progressively worse because it’s a money losing trip for everyone who goes, and the financials of it for the teams is getting worse every year.
It seems like the Bahamas tourney now has had a stronger field than Maui the last couple years. Maybe it’s trending that way and much shorter travel for east coast teams.
I bet you Hurley never does another one...
That may be one of the worst line ups I can recall out there. No headliners and schools with weak traveling fanbases. Weird.
Im not really shocked teams are turning this down. It's early in the season, you're figuring things out, and for some schools you gotta take a 13-hour flight across like 6 timezones just to get there, to play in some of these sort of crappy gymnasiums, trying to win 4 games in 4 days or whatever, and then fly 13 hours back for your next game, a day after you land.
I get that it's cool for the fans, probably cool for the players and staff.. but If I'm a basketball coach, I don't see the value this really has. I guess an early tournament setup can really prep your team down the road. But, in Hurley's case, it could also cause some extra losses. And hell, you look at a team like UK.. could Butler, Jrob, Carr and Kerr even make it to game 3 without injury?
I get that it's cool for the fans, probably cool for the players and staff.. but If I'm a basketball coach, I don't see the value this really has. I guess an early tournament setup can really prep your team down the road. But, in Hurley's case, it could also cause some extra losses. And hell, you look at a team like UK.. could Butler, Jrob, Carr and Kerr even make it to game 3 without injury?
Maui unfortunately
Probably becoming a much less desirable option these days with travel expenses and "will my plane actually land correctly" concerns
Probably becoming a much less desirable option these days with travel expenses and "will my plane actually land correctly" concerns
With the new NIL tourneys I think ones like Maui and the battle for Atlantis will lose their appeal and will start getting the 3rd and fourth options of teams
Sad. Just another death rattle for CBB as we know it.
Well, I think it just needs to make sense for the programs and the staff and even the players. As I said above.. I don't know if traveling 2,000 miles away to play back-to-back-to-back games is what coaches want to do.
For starters, the gymnasiums need to be held to a certain standard.. those Bahamas gyms are a literal hazard. 2nd, I would find a way to make this so it's not back-to-back games. I know people will balk at this, but the current level of basketball just isn't meant to be played in such a way, where you are playing games in succession like this. Too many stress-related injuries.
Personally, if I'm going spend the money to go to Hawaii, I'm not tying up two minutes of my time in a gym watching basketball, let alone several hours. I don't blame the schools for not being interested. I have no idea how much their expenses are offset, but sending players, coaches, some support staff like equipment managers/trainers/some administrative staff and cheerleaders to Hawaii for a week is an expensive proposition.
This past November I read an article -maybe by Parrish - about how the MTE tournaments (not just Maui) were going to struggle to get the level of fields they were accustomed to. Said the schools barely made any money doing it and in this day and age they big schools couldn't affort to take the financial hit....... not to mention the possiblitiy og getting tagged with a couple or three early losses. I think this was in reaction to UCONN flaming out in Hawaii.
Yeap. Started the year ranked #2, went 0-3. Lost to Memphis, Colorado, and Dayton.
You can do these tournaments regionally. I know that takes away the fun of playing the games in these vacation settings.. but if what we want is tournament-style basketball early in the season, then doing it at some arena in Atlanta or Boston should satisfy this just fine. Plus, it's much cheaper. Load up the bus and drive to the nearest city for a 3night stay to play 2 or 3 games.
I remember when “the great Alaskan Shootout” was a big deal . Looks like the Maui Classic will follow the same path.
I don't know about that.
2024 Maui field : Memphis, Mich State, UNC, UCONN, Auburn, Iowa ST, Colorado, Dayton
2023 Maui field : Chaminade, Gonzaga, Kansas, Marquette, Purdue, Syracuse, Tenn, UCLA
2022 Maui field : Arizona, Arkansas, Cinn, Creighton, Louisville, OSU, SD State, Texas tech
2021 Maui field : Butler, Chaminade, Houston, Oregon, ND, St. Marys, Texas A&M, Wisconsin
2020 Maui field : Bama, Texas, UNC, Indiana, Stanford, Providence, Dayton, UNLV,
2019 Maui field : Mich State, UCLA, Georgia, Dayton, Kansas, BYU, Chaminade, Virginia Tech
2018 Maui field : SD State, Iowa State, Auburn, Duke, Illinois, Arizona, Gonzaga, Xavier
The 23/24 tournaments was pretty stacked.
It's money. The cost to go over there is immense, the tournament doesn't pay the teams anything, and meanwhile the Vegas tournaments are offering huge NIL payouts with identical exposure. Maui might become a thing of the past.
True, I just think with these NIL tourneys now the big boy schools aren’t gonna look at Maui and Atlantis as the first choice anymore
