Thanksgiving has become a television-fueled marathon for college basketball, with just about every team in a power conference in the country playing in some sort of tournament. For UConn that came last week in the Charleston Classic, with wins over Buffalo and Miami and a double-overtime loss to Xavier. If you’re looking for your basketball fix while the Huskies are off, you have an overwhelming number of options.
Where do you start? Here are the five tournaments to which you should pay the most attention this week:
5) Las Vegas Invitational:
There are four potential NCAA Tournament teams in the field in Texas Tech, Iowa, Creighton and San Diego State. The Red Raiders, of course, are coming off back-to-back seasons that saw them go to the Elite 8 and overtime of the national title game. Now they’re looking to sustain that success and become a true perennial power.
The Blue Jays and Aztecs are likely bubble teams that no one wants to play in March. The Hawkeyes, meanwhile, just lost a starter in Jack Nunge, who is out for the year with a torn ACL.
4) Hall of Fame Classic:
None of these teams are ranked, but Butler, Missouri, Oklahoma and Stanford could all collect important resume-boosting wins against each other in Kansas City. The Bulldogs and Cardinal are a combined 13-0 as they play each other for the championship on Tuesday. OU, meanwhile, already has wins over Minnesota and Oregon State on neutral floors, and looks like a fringe Tournament team led by Kristian Doolittle and Brady Manek as it plays Mizzou in the consolation game.
3) Emerald Coast Classic:
This eight-team field is clearly split in half – the mid-majors and the high-majors. If you’re into Jacksonville State, Chicago State, Alabama State and Chattanooga, good for you. The other side is where the real fun lies. No. 17 Tennessee meets Florida State, while 20th-ranked VCU takes on Purdue. With the exception of the Rams, all of those teams are coming off seasons in which they lost a ton of scoring and talent – Admiral Schofield, Grant Williams, Carsen Edwards, Terance Mann and Mfiondu Kabengele, namely.
If nothing else, watch FSU play and see how Leonard Hamilton hasn’t aged in 20 years (at least). The man is 71!
2) Maui Invitational:
The original Thanksgiving tournament is already underway, and it has its normal high-quality field. Already underway, we had a massive upset on Monday with Virginia Tech shocking No. 3 Michigan State, denying us of a Sparty-Kansas championship. Still, the tournament features a Player of the Year candidate in Cassius Winston, a likely lottery pick in Georgia freshman Anthony Edwards, plus a KU team that, shocker, is a Final Four contender again. This tourney has a little bit of everything.
1) Battle 4 Atlantis:
Nassau will have more depth than any field this week, with seven of the eight teams from a power conference. The field features four of the top 15 teams in the country (UNC, Gonzaga, Oregon and Seton Hall), plus Michigan under new head coach Juwan Howard, Iowa State, Alabama and Southern Miss. The Tar Heels and star freshman Cole Anthony have the easier side of the bracket, meaning they’ll likely get to the championship, where the Zags, Ducks or Pirates await. And if you haven’t seen Seton Hall’s Myles Powell play – do it.
