Best day in Maui Invitational history? Comebacks, fireworks and college basketball at its peak

LAHAINA, Hawaii – Where should I start?

Maybe at the end: at 9:38 p.m. local time, the Hawaiian sky is already a blanket of black except for a few patches of starlight. The 12-hour time jump — four college basketball games, one after the other — was finally over. As the palm trees swayed in the wind, Polynesian Adventure Bus No. 261 revved its engine in the loading lane behind the Lahaina Civic Center, waiting for its last passenger. A second later, Dayton coach Anthony Grant descended the second-floor gym stairs and stepped out of the shadows. He then climbed the few steps to the bus before sitting in the front row seat diagonal from the driver.

What a night. What a day. What a sport.

Over the past 40 years, the Maui Invitational has become a mainstay of college basketball and is easily the most celebrated of the extensive list of neutral preseason events. Why? The magic of Maui – and no, that doesn’t refer to the beautiful black sand beaches or the breathtaking sunsets between volcanoes. The Magic of Maui explains how a 2,400-seat high school gym always somehow seems to inspire spectacular basketball games. And while there are too many to list, the good people of Hawaii have at least tried to commemorate many of the classics with framed black photos hanging in the gym’s double staircase. Some of the biggest names in sports history adorn these walls: Kemba Walker, Adam Morrison, Bobby Hurley.

But after Monday they will have to make more space.

In many ways, it’s fitting that the 40th anniversary of the Maui Invitational began with arguably the best day of play in the event’s history, perhaps one of the best days outside of March that men’s college basketball has seen in a long time. How good was it? Two top-five teams (No. 2 UConn and No. 5 Iowa State) lost by a single basket. Two other teams (No. 4 Auburn and No. 12 North Carolina) scored second-half comebacks of at least 18 points. (UNC went one step further, falling to 21 points against Dayton; it marked the Tar Heels’ biggest comeback since 1993, or a year after current UNC coach Hubert Davis last played in college.) Not enough? How about two buzzer-beaters, the end of the nation’s longest winning streak, and UConn coach Dan Hurley calling the officials a “fucking joke” on national television?

Again, all within 12 hours, in the same tiny building in the middle of the Pacific.

No other sport is capable of providing the same high-stakes drama as college basketball, especially not in a single location. Going from annoyingly terrible basketball to playing at the highest level, sometimes in the course of a single possession, can be whiplash-inducing. But that’s exactly what’s fun. How to have a magical Monday in Maui.

Memphis and UConn, two former American Athletic Conference rivals, kicked off at 9:30 a.m. local time. Memphis entered as the third-best 3-point shooting team in the country, while UConn itself had a top-five offense. So, fireworks. Points. Lots of them. When Memphis guard Tyrese Hunter sank his seventh 3-pointer, a career-high, with about eight minutes left, it put the Tigers ahead by 10 and put the two-time defending national champions on edge. With four minutes left, Memphis’ lead had grown to 13; interesting, but not earth-shattering. That part came next — as UConn closed regulation time with an 18-5 run capped by a game-winning Solo Ball 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left. Of course, Ball had only made one throw the entire game before going into the goal. Maybe we should have known then what the rest of the day had in store for us.

In overtime, the basketball hoops gave way to theater. The settlement of technical fouls midway through the game — after UConn’s Samson Johnson pushed Memphis center Moussa Cisse to the ground, leading to Cisse’s teammate Dain Dainja being shoved back — changed the scale from sullen to confrontational. Then Hurley kicked things into high gear, melting (and falling) on ​​the sideline after one of his players was whistled for a run-of-the-mill over-the-back foul. Then came the profanity, the (overdue) technical foul and seven straight Memphis free throws to thwart the upset. By lunchtime, the food trucks outside the Civic Center could have made a fortune selling cigarettes: to fans, team officials, coaches and sportswriters alike.

“When we first got picked to play them,” Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said after his team’s 99-97 overtime win, “I was like, OK. It starts with a bang.”

To bring everyone’s blood pressure down again, Colorado and Michigan State – the Spartans missed their first 14 3s but somehow saw their national 3-point percentage rise – took over the court for 40 minutes. A 16-point snoozer. Aaaand keep going.

Because then came the ridiculously good evening session, starting with the first opening match of the five best teams in the history of the Maui Invitational: No. 4 Auburn against No. 5 Iowa State. The Cyclones put the Tigers through a noodle-maker in the first 20 minutes, their chewy-glass defense giving them a 16-point halftime lead. If Bruce Pearl’s Tigers hadn’t gone on a late 10-2 run before halftime, the deficit could easily have been 20 or more.

But then the Tigers and Cyclones went all out on Freaky Friday, switching styles and substance. Suddenly, Auburn couldn’t miss, while Iowa State couldn’t reach the Pacific from a sailboat, missing nine of its first 10 shots in the second half. The Tigers didn’t take the lead for the first time until four minutes before the end of the game. At that point, Iowa State woke up and the two punched each other in the face until the final buzzer sounded. The Cyclones actually led with less than a minute to play and had the ball again when the game was tied with 30 seconds left, only for Auburn’s best player – All-America center Johni Broome, who finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds — forced a steal with 10 seconds left and a missed layup on the other end gave the Tigers an 83-81 victory. Voila: Auburn’s second top-five win in three weeks and a second top-five team headed to the losers bracket.

“To have as good a win as we’re going to see,” Pearl said after the game, “and as good a game.”

Ha.

If only he knew what came next.

Sensibly, nothing Dayton and UNC could do at that point could match what the day had already seen. But as the College Football Playoff committee seems to be learning in real time, that’s why you play the games. However, North Carolina only seemed to play half of the game: the second half. It fell behind by 18 points at halftime, which was extremely frustrating for Tar Heel fans: The team with the fewest turnovers in the country entering Monday scored 12 points in the first 20 minutes, leading to 19 Dayton points led. The deficit was as high as 21 points early in the second half before Davis told his team straight away.

“I told them they don’t do comeback games,” Davis explained afterwards. “You’re just not…If you changed that, the game would turn around.”

Sparks lit. The 21 soon became 16. Eleven. Eight. Five. Secure until seven. Except for four. Then two. Finally, after taking as many hits as possible, UNC got its head above sea level with less than two minutes to play thanks to RJ Davis’ step-back 3-pointer. Another All-American doing All-American things.

Dayton immediately hit back with another three, and we’d seen this script before. It wasn’t until UNC winger Drake Powell hit a corner kick – his second of the night after making just one three-pointer in the team’s first four games – that the Tar Heels finally took the lead.

As the UNC players headed to their postgame press conference, they walked the line between solemn and sleepy. I want to enjoy the victory, but I know that a date with a top 5 opponent awaits us in less than 24 hours. But with the day behind them, unlike the victorious players from Memphis, Michigan State and Auburn, they were able to put the entire scene into some perspective.

“It was electric,” said UNC guard Seth Trimble, who scored a career-high 27 points and will most likely be the star of the event. “It was a lot of fun to do it in that atmosphere, as loud as it was.”

Simple, but so, so true.

Grant, whose team snuffed out a Top 15 win, played the unenviable role of goalkeeper.

“We can’t really relive,” he said, hurrying out the door, “what happened tonight.”

Maybe he can’t. But the rest of us can – and so should we.

You can’t say that this was definitely, absolutely, 100 percent, hands down the best day in the history of the Maui Invitational. Too many memories. Too many good games. Too many generations of highlights to piece together, even though almost all of them occurred in this tiny slice of paradise.

But Monday was the talk. If you want to say it’s at the top of the imaginary list, you won’t find an argument here. Most years we’re lucky to get one, maybe even two, real thrillers at this event. But three in one day? At the risk of sounding greedy, will there be more in the semi-finals? Another Wednesday championship classic worth hanging in the halls of the Civic Center? It seems so. But Monday’s magic was enough to get us going regardless and was a perfect reminder of what makes this sport so special in the larger athletics landscape.

Back in front of the Civic Center, bus #261 was finally fully loaded. The parking brake was released and off we went, up a hill and into the distance, with the aim of returning on Tuesday. It was completely silent now – until a parking attendant started clapping his hands and the sound of the ocean in the distance filtered through. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and walked along the path the bus had just taken, up and away from the Civic Center, the day completely behind him. But before disappearing into the darkness, he tapped another volunteer on the shoulder and loudly announced what the entire college basketball community was thinking as their head hit the pillow:

“See you in the morning.”

(Photo: Darryl Oumi/Getty Images)