LAHAINA, Hawaii — Now college basketball’s premier early-season event, the Maui Invitational was inspired by the biggest upset in the sport’s history: Chaminade’s win over No. 1 Virginia and 7-foot-4 center Ralph Sampson on Dec. 23, 1982.
The disparity couldn’t have been greater. It was the best team and the best player in the country against a team from a virtually unknown Honolulu school of 850 kids, led by a junior-high school counselor who moonlighted as their coach.
"We were NAIA hamburger guys," then-Chaminade coach Merv Lopes said Monday, before he was honored at the Maui Invitational for the 40th anniversary of the historic event. "I was not a coach. Playing basketball was fun for me."
But, even in the pre-internet era, Lopes and the Silverswords quickly found themselves elevated to a higher profile with their shocking win.
Chaminade was made the annual "host" every season from the Maui Invitational's inaugural event in 1984 until 2018, recording upsets over Providence (1991), Stanford (1992), Villanova (2003), Oklahoma (2010) and Texas (2012).
But the hamburger guys have no chance this season.
Chaminade can’t pull an upset over Arizona, or any of the other seven teams in the Maui Invitational field, because of a 2018 change stipulating that it can only play in Lahaina during odd-numbered years.
In even years such as this one, the Silverswords are instead handed a few games in what is billed as the "Mainland" bracket of the Maui Invitational. This year, they were assigned a three-game, week-long trip to the Midwest to play Ohio State, Louisville and Cincinnati on their home courts.
In exhibition games.
Not exactly the same thing.
"It breaks my heart," Lopes says. "Chaminade is part of the tournament. Chaminade should be in it."
The Silverswords nearly made the best of it this season, losing at Louisville 80-73 in a game that game wouldn't have counted, anyway.
They will have to wait for another upset chance until next season, when the Silverswords will join the latest Maui field of big names: Gonzaga, Kansas, Tennessee, UCLA, Purdue, Marquette and Syracuse.
Lopes, 90, is around for consultation if the Silverwords need a winning game plan. Except he doesn’t carry himself any sort of mastermind, just a guy who had a plan born of desperation some 40 years ago.
"Every time (Sampson) had the ball, we put all five guys on him," Lopes said, "make him throw the ball to somebody else."
Somehow, it worked.
In this Dec. 23, 1982, file photo, Chaminade's Tony Randolph attempts to edge Virginia's Ralph Sampson, left, out of the play during a college basketball game in Honolulu. The Silver Swords' victory remains one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history.
Sampson, who would go on to win his third national player of the year award that season, took just nine shots. He had 11 points and 17 rebounds but Virginia totaled just 72 points to Chaminade’s 77.
The Silverwords did it. Because of heart, to be sure, but also because of opportunity. The kind of chance they won’t have this time around.
