Chaminade Tournament Jump Ball Start of the Basketball Season

The 23rd annual EA Sports Maui Invitational hosted by our own neighbor, Chaminade University, brings together the hoop legend teams of college basketball every December.

The tournament is the nation's premier tip off to the new season with the extraordinary elite players and programs sweating for supremacy in college basketball.

Twelve games bring together the best fans in the world for an entire arena of courtside seats. The games are also broadcast across the country on ESPN networks to showcase our natural beauty and the best college basketball will offer in the upcoming season.

Eight teams battled for the title with such legends of the hard court as UCLA and Kentucky sweating for the standing room only screaming fans. On the eve of Thanksgiving, UCLA had succeeded at the sun, surf and swish hoops in Hawaii winning the title. Today in the college polls, there are ranked number one.

The participants of the Maui tournament claim 52 of 68 NCAA championships, 52 of 68 national runner-up spots and an impressive 202 out of 272 Final Four teams.

Many of the perennial players who have ever bounced a ball on the court have dribbled the ball in Lahaina. Steve Nash, Vince Carter, Grant Hill and Paul Pierce have all created a roar at the Chaminade tournament.

It is no wonder that Associated Press College Basketball Editor Jim O' Connell calls Lahaina Lunacy, "the best in-season tournament in the country - the standard by which all others are compared."

Any fan of basketball, especially Chaminade, should live Lahaina Lunacy at least once in a lifetime. It is a great preview to the players and the programs for the upcoming season. It is more than March Madness because it is on Maui allowing you to sense the sensation of college sports in a close community of enthusiasts.

Duke will be just one of the teams coming to Maui in 2007. The road to the national championship starts with the first jump ball at the Lahaina Civic Center. Attending is a great way to support our local team, Chaminade, to upset another powerhouse such as they did in their victory against Virginia in 1982.