Tennessee Basketball: Maui Invitational to be played at a different site following wildfires

The Maui Invitational will go on as scheduled, it will just be played at a different location. It was announced Friday afternoon that the tournament will be played in Honolulu instead of the Lahaina Civic Center in Maui, after wildfires devastated Maui in early August.

Tournament games will be played at the Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.

Tennessee will face Syracuse in the first round in the Maui Invitational on November 20, the first of three games in three days. The other six teams in the loaded tournament field are Gonzaga, Kansas, Marquette, Purdue, UCLA and Chaminade. 

Purdue and Gonzaga are on the Tennessee side of the bracket, with the winners and losers from the two games meeting on November 21. On the opposite side of the bracket, it’s Kansas facing Chaminade and UCLA facing Marquette.

Tennessee opens the regular-season schedule on November 6 against Tennessee Tech, after exhibition games at Michigan State on October 29 and against Lenoir-Rhyne on October 31. The Vols go to Wisconsin on November 10 in the first marquee matchup of the season.

SEC announces basketball schedule

The Southeastern Conference last week announced the league’s complete basketball schedule with dates and in doing so completed Tennessee’s 2023-24 schedule. The Vols open league play against at Thompson-Boling Arena against Ole Miss on January 6 and close the regular-season schedule at home against Kentucky on March 9.

After the opener in Knoxville against Ole Miss has home dates with Florida (January 16), Alabama (January 20), South Carolina (January 30), LSU (February 7), Vanderbilt (February 17), Texas A&M (February 24), Auburn (February 28) and Kentucky (March 9).

Road games in SEC play are at Mississippi State (January 10), at Vanderbilt (January 27), at Kentucky (February 3), at Texas A&M (February 10), at Arkansas (February 14), at Missouri (February 20), at Alabama (March 2) and at South Carolina (March 6).

A closer look at the non-conference schedule

Tennessee basketball on July 17 announced its complete non-conference schedule , highlighted by road games at Wisconsin and North Carolina, a home date with Illinois, a neutral-site game against North Carolina State in San Antonio and the Maui Invitational game against Syracuse.

They go to Wisconsin on November 10 and host Wofford on November 14, before playing three games in Hawaii November 20-22. The Vols go to North Carolina on November 29, the first game back after returning from Hawaii, and will host George Mason on December 5. Illinois comes to Knoxville on December 9 and Georgia Southern will be the opponent at Thompson-Boling Arena on December 12. 

The neutral-site game against North Carolina State is set for December 16 and a home date with Tarleton State on December 21 is the final game before the Christmas break. Tennessee hosts Norfolk State on January 2 in the final non-conference game on the schedule.

The game at Wisconsin is the second in a home-and-home series that started at Thompson-Boling Arena in December 2019. The Vols were scheduled to play at Wisconsin in December 2020 before the COVID pandemic altered the 2020-21 basketball season.

Wisconsin won 68-48 at Thompson-Boling Arena on December 28, 2019. Wisconsin finished 20-15 last season, going 9-11 in Big Ten play before making a run to the NIT championship game, where the Badgers lost to North Texas.

Tennessee announced in December that a home-and-home with Illinois had been scheduled, starting in Knoxville this season. The Vols make the return trip to Illinois on December 14, 2024.