Maui Invitational Basketball Tournament
 

The university of Memphis will be playing in this tournament in November, Thanksgiving week but before Thanksgiving Day.

When would be the best time to make reservations for flights and hotels in the Lahaina area? Would going home on Thanksgiving Day be cheaper than going home the day before.

If someone has been to this tournament, I would appreciate any advice.

We went this year; it was a blast. We used the mauiinvitational.com website, but we arranged our own trip because their travel agent couldn't do as good a job, we thought. We stayed from Saturday til Sunday. The first part of the trip, we stayed at the team hotel. Then we moved in order to enjoy the holidy weekend on the island. We had to wait and buy our tickets in August. I was glad we didn't try to get tickets in Hawaii; they were very hard to come by. I'd suggest visiting the website and also your alumni center. You want to stay at your team's hotel if possible. I think we got our plane tickets and hotel in late spring. It was a ton of fun! Really, really good basketball. If I remember correctly, UCLA and Duke are playing, next year or the year after.

Sounds like you enjoyed the trip. How can I find out if UCLA is playing next year? Is the roster out yet?

This is the field & dates for 2006:

Chaminade, DePaul, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Memphis, Oklahoma, Purdue & UCLA November 20, 21, 22

This is the field for 2007:

Chaminade, Arizona State, Duke, Illinois, Louisiana State, Marquette, Oklahoma State & Princeton.

Lahaina Civic Center only holds 2400 & tickets go fast.

sfamylou gives good advice on getting tickets.

Sorry that I thought UCLA and Duke both next year; glad there was an accurate roster posted. Yes, the arena is very small. Since we didn't book through the invitational travel agent, we had to wait until the released tickets, which was August. (They sent an email; you can sign up for that.) You really can't count on buying game tickets there. People were showing up and then getting turned away. If you think you want to attend other team games, then you should try to get those tickets in advance too. The way it works is, you line up outside the civic center, one line for each school. The first night, we got there late and had bad seats. Well. They were great seats any other place, but they were on the edges. The next games, we arrived much, much earlier to line up, and we had great center-court seats. The waits were long; one game before us had a triple overtime, and it was raining. But there were people cheering and it was fun. You really get a chance to talk to players and their families; we still correspond with one player's family we met while sitting near them during the championship game. It was really, really fun. It was worth it, too, to stay at the team hotel.

I look foward to making the trip next Nov 20,21,22to pull for Ga Tech! 22.I think going through the school is best for tickets.May choose to fly into the west Maui arpt instead of OGG.