UCLA Basketball: The Bruins are heading to the Maui Invitational

It was announced today that UCLA basketball team will be heading back to the Maui Invitational during the 2019-2020 season and the field is brutal.

For the sixth time since the inception of the Maui Invitational Tournament, the UCLA basketball team will participate in the eight-team extravaganza.

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The Bruins will head to the island of Maui in 2019 as they will participate in one of the more famous preseason tournaments in college basketball and the field that has been laid out will definitely make it a tourney to watch.

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Along with the Bruins, the Maui Invitational will include host Chaminade, BYU, Dayton, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan State and Virginia Tech. Talk about brutal.

Though the island invitational is a fun event, it is also one of the more rigorous preseason tournaments in Division I hoops, as you can see.

For those that do not know, the Maui Invitational begins in a standard playoff format, but once a team loses, they are not out as every team is guaranteed three games as teams play to a 1st to 8th place finish.

In five attempts, UCLA has only won the tournament once which came in 2006 as Ben Howland’s Bruins took out Georgia Tech with Darren Collison being named tournament MVP.

Their last visit to the invitational came in 2015, though that trip was not as productive as the Bruins lost their last two (of three) games to Kansas and Wake Forest and ended up in 4th place. Hopefully in 2019, with the way recruiting has picked up, the Bruins can do a little more damage.

Though it is over a year away, the Bruins seem to be on an upswing, especially in recruiting. This fall, UCLA is bringing in the no. 3 recruiting class in the nation which includes 5-star center Moses Brown, 4-star PF Shareef O’Neal, point guard Tyger Campbell, shooting guard David Singleton III, shooting guard Jules Bernard and 3-star center Kenny Nwuba.

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With the way the Bruins have been hitting the recruiting trail, hopefully they can present a class of this magnitude for the 2019 Maui Invitational. Go Bruins!