Michigan State vs. Colorado FREE LIVE STREAM (11/25/24): How to watch, time, TV channel for Maui Invitational Tournament

Michigan State faces Colorado in a men’s basketball game on Monday, November 25, 2024 at the Lāhainā Civic Center in Lahaina, Hawaii.

How to watch: Fans can view the game with a FREE TRIAL on it DirecTV Stream and FuboTV.

Here’s what you need to know:

What: College basketball

WHO: Michigan State vs. Colorado

When: November 25, 2024 (11/25/24)

Where: Lāhainā Civic Center

Time: 5:30 p.m. ET

TV: ESPN2

Live stream: DirecTV Stream and FuboTV

Here’s a recent college basketball story from the AP:

Lea Miller-Tooley skipped a call to welcome the Baylor women’s basketball team to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, where 80-degree temperatures made it easy for the Bears to settle into Paradise Island a week before Thanksgiving.

About 5,000 miles west of the Caribbean nation, similar climes awaited the Maui Invitational men’s team in Hawaii. They have often been greeted with leis, the traditional Hawaiian greeting of friendship.

College basketball teams and fans look forward to this time of year. The holiday week’s tournaments feature buzzworthy matchups and all-day TV coverage, but there’s a familiarity to them as they help stave off the November chill. For four decades, these sandy beach vacations filled with basketball have become a beloved mainstay of the sport itself.

“When you see (ESPN’s) ‘Feast Week’ of college basketball on TV, when you see Battle 4 Atlantis on TV, you know college basketball is back,” said Miller-Tooleythe founder and organizer of the Battle 4 Atlantis men’s and women’s tournaments. “Because it’s a saturated time of year with the NFL, college football and the NBA. But when you see these magnificent events in these beautiful places, you realize, ‘Wow, hoops is back, let’s get excited.’

MTE Madness

The Great Alaska Shootout was the trendsetting multiple-team event (MTE) nearly five decades ago. The brainchild of the late Alaska-Anchorage coach Bob Rachal, he sought to raise his program’s profile by bringing in national power programs that could take advantage of NCAA rules that allow them to exceed the maximum allotment of regular-season games if they played three-game tournament outside the contiguous 48 states.

The first edition, called the Sea Wolf Classic, saw NC State beat Louisville 72-66 for the title on November 26, 1978.

The Maui Invitational followed in November 1984, buoyed by the buzz of NAIA program Chaminade’s shocking upset of top-ranked Virginia and 7-foot-4 star Ralph Sampson of Hawaii two years earlier.

Events kept coming and warm weather locales got in on the action. Paradise Jam in the US Virgin Islands. The Cancun Challenge in Mexico. The Cayman Islands Classic. The Jamaican classic. The Myrtle Beach Invitational joins the Charleston Classic in South Carolina. Numerous tournaments in Florida.

Some events have disappeared like the Puerto Rico Tipoff and the Great Alaska Shootout, the latter in 2017 amid event competitions and schools choosing warm-weather locales.

Atlantis is rising

Miller-Tooley’s push to build an MTE for Atlantis began as a doubleheader in December 2010, with Georgia Tech beating Richmond and Virginia Tech beating Mississippi State in a proof-of-concept moment for a tournament’s viability. It also required changing NCAA law to allow MTEs in the Bahamas. The approval came in March 2011; the first eight-team Atlantis men’s tournament followed in November.

That tournament quickly achieved marquee status with big name fields featuring Atlantis champions Villanova (2017) and Virginia (2018) later won that season’s NCAA title. Games run in a ballroom-turned-arena at the resort, where players also check out large swimming pools, water slides and internal pipe current drop surrounded by palm trees and the Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s just the value of getting your passport stamped that never gets old,” Miller-Tooley said. “When we see some of these kids, it may be their first and last time — and staff and families — that they ever travel outside of the United States. … You can see through these kids’ eyes that it’s really an incredible experience. “

ACC Network analyst Luke Hancock knows that firsthand. His Louisville team finished second in the 2012 Atlantis and won that year’s later vacated NCAA title, with Hancock named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.

“I remember (then-coach Rick Pitino) saying something like, ‘Some of you may never get this opportunity again. We live in this incredible place, you do it with people you love,'” Hancock said.

“It was a business trip for us there for Thanksgiving, but he definitely had a tone of ‘We’re going to enjoy this, too.'”

Popular demand

Maui offers similar vibes, though 2024 could be a little different as Lahaina recovers from deadly wildfires in 2023 which forced the event’s move last year.

North Carolina assistant coach Sean May played for the Tar Heels’ Maui winner in 2004 and was part of UNC’s staff for the 2016 champion, with both teams later winning the NCAA title. May said “you just feel the peace” of the area — even while focusing on games — and relishes memories of the team sailing a boat on the Pacific after the title run under now-retired Hall of Famer Roy Williams.

“Teams like us, Dukes, UConns — you want to go to places that are very well run,” May said. “Maui, Lea Miller with her group at Battle 4 Atlantis, that’s what keeps the teams coming back because you know you’re going to get standard A quality from not only the preparation but the tournament with the way it run on. Everything is top notch. And I think it brings guys back year after year.”

That’s why Colorado coach Tad Boyle is so excited about the Buffaloes’ first Maui appearance since 2009.

“We’ve been trying to get into the tournament since I got here,” said Boyle, now in his 15th season.

And of course, the warm-weather setting certainly doesn’t hurt.

“If you’re talking about the Marquettes of the world, St. John’s, Providence — they don’t want the cold weather,” said NBA and college television analyst Terrence Oglesby, who played for Clemson in the 2007 San Juan Invitational in Puerto Rico. “They’re going to have to deal with it throughout January and February. You might as well get a taste of what the sun feels like.”

Busy schedule

The Men’s Baha Mar Championship in Nassau, Bahamas got things rolling last week No. 11 Tennessee route no. 13 Baylor for the title. The week ahead boasts matchups fit for the Final Four, with teams having two weeks of action since any opening night hiccup.

“It’s a special kickoff to the college basketball season,” Oglesby said. “It’s just rust free.”

On the women’s side, Atlantis began its fourth eight-team women’s tournament Saturday with no. 16 North Carolina and no. 18 Baylor, while nearby Baha Mar Resort follows with two four-team women’s brackets that include No. 2 UConn, no. 7 LSU, no. 17 Mississippi and no. 20 NC State.

Then come the main names of the men.

The Maui Invitational turns 40 when it opens Monday back in Lahaina. It has the second-ranked and two-time reigning national champion UConnno. 4 Auburnno. 5 Iowa State and no. 10 North Carolina.

Battle 4 Atlantis opens its 13th men’s tournament on Wednesday, topped by no. 3 Gonzaga, no. 16 Indiana and no. 17 Arizona.

Michigan State Hall of Famer Tom Izzo makes his fifth trip to Maui, where he debuted as Jud Heathcote’s successor at the tournament in 1995. Izzo’s Spartans have twice competed at Atlantis, at the end of 2021.

“They’re important because they give you something in November or December that’s exciting,” Izzo said.

Any downsides?

“It’s a 10-hour flight,” he said of Hawaii.

Thank you for trusting us to deliver the journalism you can trust. Consider supporting us with a subscription. Cayden Steele can be reached at [email protected]