Maui Classic Underway…
The good old Maui Invitational is my favorite preseason tourney. All these great teams crammed into a gymnasium with questionable, if any, air conditioning. Fans are literally fanning themselves with programs and the sweat is wonderfully visible with HD technology. People wearing shorts in November and those excellent hawaiian shirts that don’t do this color blind fan any favors.
As the tip off is set for tonight I’m excited for a few reasons, but mainly because this tips off college basketball to me. Sure teams have been beaten already but when you can sit in front of your tv at midnight and watch a live game you have to appreciate basketball in Hawaii.
Tonights late late game is the one I’m set to watch for sure. It pits Illinois vs Arizona st. where Herb Sendek will be leading the Sun Devils in their season opener. Other teams playing are Marquette vs Chaminade, (Marquette won in a semi close game) Duke vs Princeton and Oklahoma St vs LSU. The tourney is set up for Duke to play Marquette in the finals but some tricky things usually happen on the island this early in the season.
I like Illinois to beat Arizona st but this will be a very close game. Illinois will need to play some tough defense because Arizona st will have some serious players. The depth of Illinois will be a problem but Illinois needs to find a scoring threat to offset Shaun Pruitt. Arizona St features freshman and Mcdonalds all american James Harden who will be very fun to watch.
Duke will beat Princeton easily and play the winner of Illinois/ARizona st tomorrow. I expect LSU to beat Oklahoma St because Oklahoma St is down this season. Sean Sutton will have his hands full with the athletes at LSU. Though I think that Sutton is a much better coach John Brady the players will make the difference here. I won’t predict anything beyond this point only that I hope Duke loses somewhere along the way. 2nd round hopefully?
