The first thing you notice is the natural beauty. You’ve been to the beach a million times. You’ve seen the ocean on both sides of the continental United States. But you’ve never looked at anything quite like this — the blue skies separated from the blue water only by mountains covered in green.
It’s amazing.
I’d observed Maui on television pretty much my entire life because it’s long been the home of college basketball’s greatest in-season tournament — an eight-team event that annually provides compelling games on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It had forever been a bucket-list item for me to attend. But, despite covering the sport for more than 20 years, I’d never actually made the trek to the Maui Invitational until I did so in November 2018, when Zion Williamson and Duke were the biggest draw in the nation and on a collision course with Mark Few’s Gonzaga program that was just two seasons removed from a trip to the title game of the NCAA Tournament and only two seasons away from another.
The Zags won Maui that year, you might remember.
Rui Hachimura was the MVP.
But nearly five years later, when I look back on that experience, I don’t think about the games as much as I reminisce about the super-early morning walks and the realization that EVERYBODY takes super-early morning walks in Maui because nobody’s body-clock gets adjusted until it’s time to leave. Typically, once I see a place, and enjoy a place, I mark it off a list. If I make it back someday, great. But once I’ve seen it, and once I’ve enjoyed it, I’m not usually eager to get back and do it again.
Coaches enjoyed beautiful vistas at last year’s Maui Invitational.
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Maui was different, though.
It was just so beautiful and so peaceful and so laid back that I remember thinking about how I’d definitely…
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