College Basketball Fans: Plan Your Hawaii Visit around the Maui Invitational

Back in 1982, tiny Chaminade College, a suburban Honolulu liberal arts school, pulled off the biggest upset in college basketball history.  The team beat number-one ranked Virginia, featuring the game’s number-one player Ralph Samson.

Every year now, Chaminade has been hosting the Maui Invitational in Lahaina Maui.  It’s the early-season tournament most buffs consider the best one of all.  This year, the field is formidable again, featuring Texas, Notre Dame, Alabama, Oregon, St. Joseph’s, Indiana, Chaminade …

and North Carolina, which returns 2007-08 player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough and its other top five scorers from last season’s Final Four team!  NCU is all but certain to be ranked Number One when the tournament begins, and Hansbrough surely will be pre-season player of the year.  Chaminade and NCU will play the tournament’s first game.

Could it happen again?

Regardless, it will be great basketball in a great small (Lahaina Civic Center) venue November 24-26.  Not until March Madness will so many high-quality teams and players be competing in the same competition.

All the games will be nationally televised, but you really want to be there.  Here at Hawaii-Aloha Travel, we can package a vacation for you that includes the tournament … and anything else you’d like to see or do on Maui or any of the other islands.  You have time to book it all and get good prices, good accommodations (which will get scarce on Maui) and good advice as to how to budget your time.  That’s what we do.

It’s easy to overlook that Hawaii hosts a number of big-deal sporting events: University of Hawaii football and basketball, the NFL Pro Bowl, the PGA Sony Open … and for fans each is a terrific centerpiece for a winter vacation in paradise.  But it’s important to plan ahead.

Posted by Jim Winpenny

Add comment August 4th, 2008