This coming November, some of the best teams in college basketball bring their fresh squads to the sandy beaches of Maui (HI) to compete in the 31st edition of the EA Sports Maui Invitational Tournament.
To be held at the Lahaina Civic Center on the island of Maui, teams like the Arizona Wildcats, Missouri Tigers, and the San Diego State Aztecs will all contend for one of college basketball’s most anticipated tournaments. Back in 2013, the Syracuse Orange won the title, defeating the Baylor Bears in the final. Which team will be the champion this year?
It’s never too early to get excited about the upcoming college basketball action. Create a betting account now, and check out how the odds stack up on the college basketball’s 2015 national championship. Who knows, one of the teams in the 2014 Maui Invitational could use the tropical tournament to propel themselves towards a big time season.
[sc:MultiSportArticles ]Early Storylines for 2014 EA Sports Maui Invitational Preview
1. Arizona Wildcats begin life without Nick Johnson and Aaron Gordon
[sc:NCAAB240banner ]Led by the duo of dynamic junior Nick Johnson and high-flying freshman Aaron Gordon, the Arizona Wildcats reached the Elite 8 round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, where they were promptly bounced by the Wisconsin Badgers. It was a bitter end for Sean Miller’s squad, who spent a lot of time perched atop the AP poll rankings during the season and were one of the favorites to win the national title.
The Wildcats begin another season with the same mission of winning the championship. However, the Wildcats will have to do it without both Johnson (16.3 PPG) and Gordon (12.4 PPG), the team’s top two scorers in the last NCAA season.
The 2014 Maui Invitational will serve as the first big test for the team as well as a perfect gauge for the Wildcats on where they stand, now that their two best players from the 2013-2014 NCAA season are gone.
2. Tournament MVP Candidates
Although it’s a small tournament in terms of the number of participating teams, the upcoming 2014 Maui Invitational will have no shortage of talented players, who can flat out give outstanding performances on any given day.
Kansas State’s Marcus Foster is one of them. As a freshman last season, Foster led the team in scoring with 15.5 PPG. He was good enough to get noticed, despite playing in the Big 12 conference that already featured other freshmen studs like Joel Embiid and Andrew Wiggins. Other players to keep an eye on in Hawaii are Arizona’s Brandon Ashley and Cameron Wright of the Pittsburgh Panthers, either of which could haul in the MVP honours in Maui.
3. Favorites to win the Tournament
Had Nick Johnson and Aaron Gordon decided to stay for at least one more year at Tucson, Arizona would surely be the overwhelming favorite to win in Hawaii. But other teams joining the tournament have also lost some key players that played big roles in the last NCAA season, like the Pittsburgh Panthers (Lamar Patterson and Talib Zanna) and the Missouri Tigers (Jabari Brown, Jordan Clarkson). That said, those three schools along with the San Diego State Aztecs, which reached the Sweet 16 round of the last NCAA Tournament, are the favorites to win in November.
4. The Missouri Tigers debut new coach Kim Anderson
Kim Anderson was tasked to handle the reins of the Tigers’ basketball program back in April. Unfortunately, it came at the time when two of the school’s best players, Jabari Brown and Jordan Clarkson, were about to depart, thus leaving a big gap in the roster and an even bigger challenge to find suitable recruits to make Anderson’s first year as coach a manageable one.
In the 2014 Maui Invitational, we’ll see for the first time whether Anderson has what it takes to lead the Tigers toward a brighter future.
5. Can the Chaminade Silverswords pull off an upset?
The very foundation of the Maui Invitational is rooted in one of the biggest upsets that has ever happened in the history of college basketball. In 1982, little-known Chaminade University of Honolulu beat the number one team in the nation at the time, the Ralph Sampson-led Virginia Cavaliers. More recently, the Silverswords beat the Oklahoma Sooners in 2010. Two years later, they scored another shocking upset by beating the Texas Longhorns.
The Maui Invitational is not the NCAA Tournament, but it has at least a Cinderella with the Division II team Chaminade Silverswords.
Prediction
The Arizona Wildcats, led by Brandon Ashley, will come out on top of the field in November.
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