REPORT: Michigan State to play Colorado in first round of Maui Invite; other matchups revealed
East Lansing, Mich. – Michigan State will play Colorado in the opening round of the 41st Maui Invitational, according to a report from CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein. The event will take place from Nov. 25-27.
Seven of the eight teams in this year’s field made the NCAA Tournament last season, including Michigan State, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa State, Auburn, North Carolina and Dayton. Memphis is the lone team in the field not to make last season’s NCAA Tournament.
The Spartans return to the annual college basketball tournament for the first time since 2019, when they fell to Virginia Tech in the first round before beating Georgia in the consolation second round and UCLA in the fifth-place game.
This year’s tournament marks just the second time in five seasons that the event will take place in its traditional venue, the Lahaina Civic Center on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The tournament took place at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C., in 2020 and at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns. Last year’s event was held at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu due to the ongoing wildfires in and around Maui.
To aid in the relief efforts from those wildfires, Michigan State held an exhibition contest against Tennessee at the Breslin Center last November. All proceeds raised from the game went to the Hawaii Community Foundation Maui Strong Fund.
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Colorado is coming off an 81-77 second-round loss to No. 2-seeded Marquette in last year’s NCAA Tournament. The Buffaloes, under 15th-year head coach Tad Boyle, finished 26-11 (13-7) last season, their last as members of the Pac-12 conference.
Now members of the Big 12, Colorado will look to replace six of its top seven leading scorers from last year’s team. KJ Simpson, Tristan da Silva and Cody Williams left for the NBA, while J’Vonne Hadley (Louisville), Eddie Lampkin (Syracuse) and Luke O’Brien (Georgia Tech) found new homes via the transfer portal.
The Buffaloes brought in former Washington State small forward Andrej Jakimovski, center Elijah Malone from NAIA Grace College and forward Trevor Baskin from Division-II Colorado Mesa via the transfer portal this offseason, along with a three-man freshman class that includes four-star combo guard Andrew Crawford.
The Spartans and Buffaloes have met just four other times, with their most recent matchup coming in the First Round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament. Michigan State won that game, 79-64.
Michigan State will open its season on Nov. 4 against Monmouth at the Breslin Center.
