An early preview of the 2025 Maui Invitational field

For a pre-conference slate light on meaningful games, especially at home, Texas men’s basketball will have an opportunity to pick up some Quad-I or Quad-II victories during the week of Thanksgiving as they travel to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational.

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Compared to last year’s field, which included major brand names like UConn, North Carolina, Michigan State, and Auburn, as well as impressive programs like Iowa State and Dayton, this year’s competitors are, frankly, a bit underwhelming.

Seton Hall, NC State, USC, Boise State, Washington State, Chaminade, Arizona State, and Texas make up the eight-team grouping that will be competing for the tournament title. The bracket can be seen below.

Here are previews of the teams in the field.

Texas Longhorns

Texas enters their first season under Sean Miller with some immediate expectations after two listless years in a row under the previous administration.

Gone of course is SEC Freshman of the Year and sixth-overall pick of the Washington Wizards Tre Johnson, but Miller returned much of last year’s back court including Tramon Mark, Chendall Weaver, and Jordan Pope, plus St. John’s transfer guard Simeon Wilcher.

Miller also significantly upgraded the front court with transfer additions Dailyn Swain (Xavier), Matas Vokietaitis (Florida Atlantic), and Lassina Traore (Xavier).

Wing Camden Heide (Purdue) was another solid pickup for the Longhorns, as Texas finished with On3’s no. 1 transfer portal class this offseason.

They will face off with Arizona State in their first game.

Arizona State Sun Devils

All of the roster turnover Texas experienced this offseason pales in comparison to the complete demolition of Bobby Hurley’s 2024-25 Sun Devils – Arizona State lost 11 players off of last year’s team, including three prized freshmen: potential 2026 lottery pick, center Jayden Quiantance (Kentucky), guard Joson Sanon (St. John’s), and wing Amier Ali (Mississippi State).

Despite the plethora of talent Hurley had last season, the Sun Devils struggled mightily in conference play, going 4-16 in the Big 12 and finishing just 13-20 overall.

In the transfer portal this offseason, they opted for experience over freshman potential, adding guards Adante Holiman (Georgia Southern), Maurice Odum (Pepperdine), and Bryce Ford (Toledo).

Their biggest additions, however, were in wings Marcus Adams Jr. (Cal State Northridge) and Allen Mukeba (Oakland), both of whom provide scoring for a team that desperately needs it.

NC State Wolfpack

Like Texas, NC State is in their first year with a new head coach: Will Wade, who most recently coached McNeese State after stops at LSU, VCU, and Chattanooga, has taken over the program and injected new life by adding a very talented group for this upcoming season. Outside of a miracle Final Four run in 2024, the program struggled to gain much momentum under Kevin Keatts.

In addition to returning high-potential shooting guard Paul McNeil and adding top-30 freshman Matthew Able, Wade was able to bring in a top-20 portal class that includes players like guard Tre Holloman (Michigan State), forward Terrance Arcenaux (Houston), and the fifth-overall rated portal player in forward Darion Williams (Texas Tech).

The Wolfpack will likely be Texas’ biggest threat to play spoiler in the tournament, and will open against Seton Hall.

USC Trojans

Eric Musselman and company received awful news recently when it was revealed that five-star freshman guard Alijah Arenas would miss most, if not all of, the 2025-26 season with a knee injury that will require surgery. It’s a major blow to the program and something that could seriously affect their outcome.

Despite this piece of bad news, the Trojans have a positive outlook for the upcoming year, given they finished with the no. 5 ranked transfer portal class in the nation. Eight transfers, all given four-star rankings for the Rivals Portal Tracker, will come in and help to establish a new regime for USC.

These players include guards Rodney Rice (Maryland), Jordan Marsh (UNC-Asheville), and Ryan Cornish (Dartmouth), as well as a big group of forwards headlined by Chad Baker-Mazara (Auburn), Ezra Ausar (Utah), Ven-Allen Lubin (North Carolina), and Jacob Cofie (Virginia).

USC will play against an underrated Boise State team to start off in Maui.

Washington State Cougars

David Riley’s Cougars took some major lumps in the offseason, losing wing Cedric Coward (NBA Draft –11th overall, Portland/Memphis), guard Nate Calmese (Wake Forest), and forward LeJuan Watts (Texas Tech).

They bring in forward Emmanuel Ugbo (Boise State), but other than that, will mostly be relying upon the retained younger players to step up. The mostly international roster will likely struggle early on due to inexperience, but do open the tournament against Division-II Chaminade.

Seton Hall Pirates

Despite losing leading scorer Isaiah Coleman (Oklahoma State), Garwey Dual (McNeese State), and Scotty Middleton (Tulane), Seton Hall head coach Shaheen Holloway added some key pieces to his roster in guards Trey Parker (NC State) and TJ Simpkins (Elon).

On top of these adds, point guard Adam Clark (Merrimack), off-guard AJ Staton-McCray (Miami FL) and former five-star wing Elijah Fisher (Pacific) join the roster, though they return very few players after losing a good portion of last year’s group.

Still, the Pirates were miserable last season, finishing the year 7-25 and 2-18 in the Big East. It’s not likely that they will turn things around quickly enough to make a dent in this tournament, especially considering they open up the Maui Invitational with arguably the best team in NC State.

Boise State Broncos

The Broncos had a solid offseason, snagging transfer point guard Dylan Andrews (UCLA) and center Drew Fielder (Georgetown). They also retained several notable players off of a team that went 26-11 last season, including two of their top four leading scorers from last year in Javan Buchanan and Andrew Meadow.

Though they lose three-time all-Mountain West performer Tyson Degenhart, the Broncos look poised to compete in the MWC this year, and will be a tougher out than most would expect from what is considered a “football school.”

They will face USC in round one.

Chaminade Silverswords

Division-II Chaminade will represent the state of Hawaii in the Maui Invitational, a tradition that goes back to the early 1980s. In 1982, the Silverswords, then an NAIA school with an enrollment of around 800, beat top-ranked Virginia and Ralph Sampson in one of the biggest upsets in the history of sports, let alone just college basketball. Since then, they have struggled against Division-I competition, though they did beat Texas in 2012 and Cal, by 24 points, in 2017.

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Conclusion

Ultimately, the tournament will likely be a three-team race of Texas, NC State, and USC, with Boise State possibly competing as well. Given the roster breakdowns of each squad, it seems likely that the Wolfpack will be the favorite to take home the title, but the tournament at the very least provides the Longhorns with some opportunities for relevant victories before conference play.

Considering their only other games of note before SEC Tipoff are an unofficial road game against Duke in Charlotte, a true road game against UConn, and a home game against Virginia, it will be crucial for Texas to get some wins in this tournament, if not win it outright. If they can perform well in Hawaii, it may set them up with some momentum for the rest of the slate.