Oklahoma State Prepares For Important Maui Test Starting Monday Night

I love this time of year. I really do. I’m not sweating up a storm in my backyard shed anymore. College football is tense every weekend. Thanksgiving and Christmas are on deck. And college hoops starts its holiday tournaments. Every time I see the Bahamas event or Alaska Shootout or Maui Invitational, it conjures up memories of a childhood spent watching those games with my pops when school was out and my biggest concern was “will Trajan Langdon score 30 tonight or nah?”

Oklahoma State once again gets to participate in one of those — the Maui Invitational — this week along with Wisconsin, Oregon, UConn, North Carolina, Georgetown and Tennessee. It’s a big boy tournament and an important barometer for this program. Doug Gottlieb told me earlier this year that Maui, within the college basketball world, is a bigger deal than us fans think it is. It’s important to not get embarrassed.

.@PhilForte13 and @j3vans1_ are going 94 feet on the beach with @JayBilas. Keep your ?peeled for these. #okstate pic.twitter.com/g0MgXgfTfp

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) November 20, 2016

“We’re excited to be here as part of such a prestigious event,” head coach Brad Underwood said this week. We’re a team that’s still trying to figure each other out and adjusting to a new system, a new style, a new culture. But they’re both feet in. They’ve committed to hard work. And I’ve been very pleased at this point.”

The Cowboys had a blast on Saturday in Maui. @OfficialMauiJim fitted everyone for sunglasses and battled everyone in a hula and cornhole. pic.twitter.com/iPQQAlqr7U

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) November 20, 2016

Oklahoma State, which is scoring at will right now, takes on a UConn team that lost its first two games to Wagner (!) and Northeastern (!) However, the Huskies have won the Maui Invitational each of the last two times they have played it (2005 and 2010).

“We’re a very young group, like a lot of coaches said on the podium,” said head coach Kevin Ollie. “We have six newcomers coming in. And this place, Maui, has got a special place in my heart. My first year as an assistant under Coach Calhoun, I was able to come [to Maui] and watch the great Kemba Walker go on one of the most magical runs I’ve seen here, and hopefully we can display some of that magic coming back to Maui.”

I’d like to see some of the magic filtered the way of Jawun Evans and Phil Forte personally. If you make noise here, you know you have a real team on your hands. The type of squad that could make a nice run through the Big 12 and into March.

The games get underway at 1:30 p.m. Central on Monday. Oklahoma State plays at 8 p.m. If They beat UConn, they get the UNC-Chaminade winner at 9:30 on Tuesday. If they lose, they get the UNC-Chaminade loser at 2:30 on Tuesday.

Here’s the full bracket.