LAHAINA, Hawaii — Because your head inevitably veers toward beaches, palm trees and the glimmering Pacific Ocean as you drive north of town along the coastal Honoapiilani Highway, it’s easy to miss the Lahaina Civic Center.
But the cozy 2,400-seat arena, carved into the sloping volcanic rock fields just south of Kaanapali Beach resorts, has had an undeniable presence in college basketball. You know it by how Maui Invitational teams seem to pop up again every March in the NCAA tournament.
Four times, the Maui champion has gone on to win the NCAA title, and the 2000-01 Arizona Wildcats nearly made it a fifth, winning the island tournament and reaching the NCAA final later that season before losing to Duke.
But even the teams who don’t win Maui can go on and have some postseason fun. Four of those also went on to win the NCAA tournament.
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Either way, good things can happen even after you leave paradise.
That’s the way UA coach Sean Miller has looked at it all week, saying the big thing about the Maui Invitational is what his team will learn from it. Miller’s early- season mission has been to mix in five talented newcomers with veterans who have been through plenty of big games before.
For him, the Maui Invitational was the perfect place to accelerate that mission.
“The camaraderie that’s built on a trip like this, facing amazing competition on three consecutive nights and having the stage where everybody is playing in front of the nation — it can only bring out the best in what we’re trying to do,” Miller said.
“When we leave here, we’ll certainly know a lot more about our team. And I think we’ll be much, much more ready for competition when we get back.”
From here, Arizona will host Gonzaga and Michigan next month, and the Wildcats will take trips to UNLV and UTEP just before Christmas to get ready for Pac-12 play in the new year.
That means their road twists away from the tropics and all throughout the desert. But the Wildcats are fine with that. As long as it eventually leads to Indianapolis, home of this season’s Final Four.
