Kansas Gets Good Draw As Maui Invitational Bracket Released
The University of Kansas basketball team is heading back to Hawaii after a three-year absence. One of the top vacation destinations in the United States welcomes high-profile teams each Thanksgiving for an early-season tournament. Kansas fans who are planning to attend the Thanksgiving week event in paradise will now know who the Jayhawks will likely be playing.
The Maui Invitational has become one of the most highly anticipated tournaments each college basketball season. The tournament will take place from November 20th-22nd and host seven schools other than the Jayhawks including Chaminade, UCLA, Marquette, Purdue, Gonzaga, Tennessee, and Syracuse. The Maui Invitational bracket was released and Kansas can now plan their attack for a path to the tournament championship.
Kansas will face the host school, Chaminade, in round one of the tournament and it will be the third game of the day. The game is scheduled to begin at 8:00 PM CST and will air on ESPNU. The name Chaminade may sound familiar to Jayhawk fans. The NCAA Division II university based out of Honolulu, Hawaii has appeared in the Maui Invitational in all but one season since the conception of the event in 1984 and KU has played them four times. The Jayhawks are 4-0 all-time against Chaminade and most recently beat them in 2019 on their way to a Maui Invitational Tournament championship.
If Kansas wins and advances to the second round then they will play the winner of Marquette-UCLA, who will be playing in game four (the late game) on November 20th. That game is scheduled to begin at 10:30 PM CST on ESPN2. The Bruins are the only team besides Chaminade the Jayhawks have ever played over the years in the Maui Invitational. A high-profile matchup between Kansas and UCLA could be on-deck for round two. On the other side of the bracket, Tennessee will take on Syracuse in game one of the first
round. That game will tip off at 1:30 PM CST and air on ESPN2. Purdue will battle Gonzaga in game two of the first round in Maui. That game is scheduled to start at 4:00 PM CST.
Six of the eight teams in the tournament are projected to be top 20 teams heading into the 2023-2024 season. Purdue, Tennessee, and Gonzaga are all projected to be top 10 teams and they are on the opposite side of the bracket, which could help KU’s chances to make it to the Maui Invitational championship game. UCLA and Marquette will not be a pushover, as they are projected to be top 20 teams, but the top half of the bracket does look to be more daunting at this point.
No matter how far Kansas goes in this tournament, they will play at least two quad-one teams and that can boost the Jayhawks ratings come NCAA Tournament time. The Maui Invitational will come on the heels of KU playing Kentucky in the Champions Classic in Chicago on November 14th. After the invitational, Kansas will have more tough games on their non-conference slate including hosting the defending National Champions, UCONN, at Allen Fieldhouse on December 1st.
The last time Kansas played in the Maui Invitational they walked away with a thrilling 90-84 overtime victory over Dayton, giving the Jayhawks the tournament championship. Head coach Bill Self and his new group of players will look to do the same thing in 2023 and walk away as Maui Invitational Tournament champions once again. The tournament’s championship game will be played at 4:00 PM CST, on Wednesday, November 22nd.
