It has become like clock work, but the Kansas men’s basketball team is headed back to paradise for the 2019 Maui Invitational, tournament officials announced Tuesday.
The Jayhawks, who will be making their seventh appearance all-time in the early-season tournament in Hawaii, will be joined by a group of teams who have combined for 198 NCAA Tournament appearances, 44 Final Four berths and 16 national championships.
Michigan State and UCLA join the Jayhawks as headliners in the 2019 field, with BYU, Dayton, Georgia, Virginia Tech and host school Chaminade rounding out the field for the 36th annual tournament that will take place Nov. 25-27, 2019 at Lahaina Civic Center in Maui
That venue will once again be the host environment for some of the game’s top coaches, with Hall of Famers Bill Self and Tom Izzo being joined by new Georgia coach Tom Crean, UCLA’s Steve Alford, Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams and BYU’s Dave Rose. All of those coaches will be making return trips to the event.
In addition, Dayton’s Anthony Grant was on the Florida staff when the Gators played in Maui in 1999.
Crean, then with Indiana and UCLA’s Alford both were in the event when Self’s Jayhawks won it in 2015.
Fans interested in attending can immediately begin planning to catch all the action at the 2019 Maui Jim Maui Invitational. Log on to mauiinvitational.com/2019travel for details on 2019 All-Tournament travel packages, good for access to all 12 games of the 2019 Tournament.
School Booster travel packages for the 2019 Maui Jim Maui Invitational will be available at a later date. Visit mauiinvitational.com/2019info and register to receive email alerts from the Tournament.
KU, which has played in the event just about every four years — according to NCAA rules, schools can only participate in the event once every four seasons — won the Maui Invitational in both 1996, under Roy Williams, and 2015, under Self.