Kansas, UCLA, Indiana to play in Maui Invitational

Indiana will open against Wake Forest on its side of the bracket. All 12 contests of the Maui Invitational Championship Round at Lahaina Civic Center will be televised nationally by the ESPN family of networks.

“It’s obviously a great field”, head coach Bill Self said. When I studied the bracket, I really pointed out what a great field it was. The UCLA-UNLV matchup will feature another top recruit and National Basketball Association prospect in Runnin’ Rebels freshman center Stephen Zimmerman.

Arizona won the Maui title last year, beating San Diego State in the final. “If we make it to the finals, that would be great for both of us, but I wouldn’t be excited about playing Wake and I don’t think he’d be excited about playing Kansas”. The championship round takes place in Hawaii from November 23-25.

The Kansas Jayhawks will go into the Maui Invitational as the favorite to win the tournament after their Gold Medal winning performance in the World University Games.

Indiana, Kansas, UCLA and Vanderbilt are projected to be among the Top 25 teams in the 2015-16 preseason college basketball rankings. The four mainland teams will participate in regional games at Northern Colorado November. 21-22. With head coach Steve Alford entering his third year at UCLA (his 25th year as a collegiate head coach), the Bruins will return three of their five starters from one year ago and four of last season’s top six scorers.

Besides Ellis, the Jayhawks return Frank Mason, Wayne Selden and add power forward Cheick Diallo.