McKale (Very) West
Because of the financial barrier of getting to it, the Maui Invitational doesn’t draw the usual rowdy student-fan element so central to most college basketball games.
But leave it to Arizona Wildcats fans to make the 2,400-seat Lahaina Civic Center feel pretty crazy anyway.
While the south-side stands are always split evenly between fans of both teams, with neutral basketball fans and the occasional curious local typically filling up the rest of the place, UA fans were spread thickly throughout the Civic Center, probably 70 percent of the total sellout crowd.
“It’s like any other arena, but when our crowd shows up, that’s what really makes it,” UA coach Sean Miller said.
Free luau
Memo to those attending the Maui Invitational: Eat before or after the game.
You may not want to miss the halftime shows.
For Monday’s Arizona-Missouri game, the halftime act was the “Drums of the Pacific Luau,” skilled male and female dancers who rocked their hips to a frenetic drumbeat in what the tournament says is one of the “authentic dances” of the South Pacific.
Normally it costs $95-145 a head to see the same performers up the street at the Hyatt Regency Maui, though at least there you get a tropical buffet with it. But no basketball.
Other acts scheduled this week include Japanese percussion dancers, Polynesian dancers, and local ukulele virtuoso Derick Sebastian, who thrilled fans at halftime of an Arizona game in 2009.
Substitute dancer
During a pre-tournament lawn banquet Sunday night, freshman center Dusan Ristic was introduced as Arizona’s representative in a “competition” of hula dancers.
So up came Parker Jackson-Cartwright, lacking, oh, about 14 inches of Ristic’s height, and nobody complained about the difference. The spirited antics of the 5-foot-10-inch freshman guard led to Jackson-Cartwright being named one of the three top hula dancers, though he did not win.
UA assistant coach Book Richardson stood at the back of the banquet, somewhat less than impressed.
“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt,” he said.
To see and be seen
Pro golfer Ricky Barnes, a UA alum, tweeted a photo of himself standing behind the Wildcats’ team bench during Monday’s game.
“Bear Down Cats,” he said.
Meanwhile, on airplane somewhere, former UA center Alex Jacobsen posted a photo of his seat television, which was showing the Wildcats’ game.
“To top it off,” he said of a good trip to California, “I get to watch Arizona dominate the Maui classic.”
Then there was former UA player and broadcaster Corey Williams, who could only wish he was in Lahaina. He tweeted a photo of a snow-dusted car with Wisconsin plates.
“Kind of hating on … Miles Simon in Maui on ESPN2 with (Arizona). I’m here in Milwaukee tonight,” Williams tweeted.
The big number
8 Times the Maui Invitational champion has gone on to win the NCAA tournament
Quotable
“Everybody really loved me until the first game. We didn’t win the first game.”
— First-year Missouri coach Kim Anderson, a longtime former MU assistant under Norm Stewart
Bruce Pascoe
