LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Gonzaga, the No. 1 team in last season’s final AP college basketball poll, will face Dayton in the opening round of the EA Sports Maui Invitational while Final Four participant Syracuse will meet Minnesota and first-year coach Richard Pitino.
The other first-round games on Nov. 25 at the Lahaina Civic Center will have California against Arkansas and Baylor facing Division II host Chaminade, it was announced Wednesday.
The Gonzaga-Dayton and Chaminade-Baylor winners will meet in one semifinal with the Syracuse-Minnesota and Arkansas-California winners in the other. The championship game is Nov. 27.
The tournament will begin with four “mainland teams” — Coastal Carolina, Louisiana, Oakland and St. Francis, Brooklyn — playing the seven teams headed for Maui in seven games to be played Nov. 15-19 at campus sites. The mainland teams will play a tournament at Coastal Carolina on Nov. 23-24.
