LAHAINA, Hawaii -- The Arizona Wildcats may be 1-2 in Maui Invitationals so far under Sean Miller, but their coach is undefeated.
In the charity free-throw competition, that is. Miller won his second-straight free-throw competition after both he and 14-year-old partner Charlie Abreu each went 3-for-3 from the line on the Sheraton Maui lawn. The win earned $300 for Abreu's school, Kalama Intermediate, in the Upcountry Maui town of Makawao.
“You know, I’m a repeat winner,” Miller said, smiling. “I don’t know how many repeat winners there are in Maui, but I’ll take it.”
While squinting through a pre-tournament press conferene on the Sheraton Maui lawn this morning, Miller found the sunlight was an “advantage” of sorts when he had to shoot into it during the free-throw compeitition.
“I think being in Tucson, Arizona, gave me a real advantage over the competition,” he said. “Just looking up at the sun, I felt at home. Whereas some of these other guys who don’t see it very often, you could tell they were affected.”
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The press conference and a scheduled banquet tonight are anchoring the second day of Maui events, after a players’ party was held last night with a bean-bag-style toss and a hula dance-off.
The veteran Wildcats made sure they were not embarrassed by any of this, so freshmen were selected: Dusan Ristic and Parker Jackson-Cartwright entered the hula competition while Craig Victor and Stanley Johnson did a corn-hole bean bag toss.
Observers said none of the four freshmen, um, exactly impressed anyone. Especially Victor and Johnson.
“They did terrible,” UA basketball operations director Ryan Reynolds said.
If it means anything, Missouri finished second just behind BYU in the tossing, thanks to the efforts of guard Wes Clark and center Ryan Rosburg.
“Ryan and Wes were phenomenal,” Missouri coach Kim Anderson said.
The Wildcats left Tucson on Friday and flew straight to Maui thanks to a 200-seat charter flight, the cost of which was partially offset by 100 or so paying boosters who booked through Bon Voyage Travel.
Ryan Hansen, the UA radio analysts and operations chief of Bon Voyage Travel said the plane didn’t even have to stop for fuel as expected Friday and arrived in Maui at 3:15 Hawaiian time, giving the team a chance to rest Friday evening and into the weekend.
Missouri, meanwhile, traveled out on Thursday, just after beating Oral Roberts 78-64 at home on Wednesday.
Anderson didn’t figure there was much point in waiting any longer.
“That’s the way we scheduled it when I took the job,” he said.
At the interview podium this morning, all eight participating head coaches gave brief addresses, most of them talking about how honored they were to be in Maui or about their teams.
BYU’s Dave Rose mentioned that his team grew, in one sense, from the experience, in one sense.
“We took our guys snorkeling and we had quite a few who were snorkeling for the first time,” Rose said. “I think that’ll last all season (as a joke) – that a couple of guys were choking when they came up for air.”
The dean of this year’s Maui Invitational is San Diego State coach Steve Fisher, who has now been a part of five Maui events.
His first experience was an assistant coach to Bill Frieder in 1988-89 when Michigan won the event …. the same year the Wolverines later went on to win the NCAA title under Fisher, because Frieder had been dismissed after taking the ASU job.
The Wolverines defeated Vanderbilt, Memphis and Oklahoma in what was then called the Maui Classic.
Fisher remembers the experience well.
“Glen Rice was a rookie and his first shot against Mitch Richmond of Kansas State was an 18-footer that went 12 feet,” Fisher said. “We went on to win the tournament that year.”
Rice was actually a senior in 1988-89, having faced Kansas State three years earlier, but you get the point. It's tough. But it's fun.
“This is the tournament," Fisher said. "This is the tournament that we all pine to be a part of, for a whole host of reasons, starting with the competition, with the ambiance and where you are, the hospitality and the professionalism it’s run with.
All eyeballs in America will be on this tournament. You know that. We know that. Our players know that and they’re very excited to be to be here.
“I think this tournament will produce multiple NCAA participants and it has a chance to produce some folks who not only get in but make some deep advances. We look forward to it. I think we will play hard. Will be a great time to evaluate. It will be good for us as we move forward down the road.”
The entire transcript of the podium press conference comments has been attached as a PDF file.
