The last time Courtney Ramey headed to “Maui,” it was anything but.
Arizona’s grad transfer guard, who will make his Wildcat debut in the Maui Invitational on Monday against Cincinnati, actually played in college basketball’s premier early-season event two years ago for Texas.
Except there was no beach. No warm ocean water. No Hawaiian shirts. No pre-tournament luau.
No Maui, at all.
“We got a surfboard for winning the championship,” Ramey said. “That’s all I remember.”
The games were played about as far away from Lahaina as possible in the United States, at a place known as Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina. And, yes, there were surfboards in the stands … fronted by rows and rows of cardboard “fans.”
It was the COVID-19 season of 2020-21, of course, but Ramey indicated he didn’t care much about where he was at the time. He was just there to play ball, and win.
So, he did.
Ramey hit a go-ahead shot with 20 seconds left to give Texas a 78-76 win over Davidson in the first round, while the Longhorns went on beat Indiana 66-44 in the second round and North Carolina 69-67 on a buzzer-beater with 0.1 seconds left in the final.
“It was a bummer not be able to go to Hawaii, but we looked at as an opportunity to win the championship,” Ramey said. “We played three great teams and we were fortunate enough to win a championship.”
Ramey said then-Texas coach Shaka Smart told the Longhorns that not having fans wasn’t an excuse not to have energy, and Ramey created his own. In the final seconds against Davidson, Ramey found an open lane to the basket to make the game-winning layup.
“I always wanted to take those shots and be in those moments since I was a kid,” Ramey said. “Coach drew up a great play and I was the last option for that play. I made a big-time layup.”
Since the Maui Invitational kept its three-games-in-three-days schedule even at Asheville, Ramey said the Longhorns knew they couldn’t get too high after the first win. Then they came back the next day to drub Indiana and set up against the in-state blue blood Tar Heels in the championship.
“A program like that that’s been good for years and years, I think you just try to take any opportunity and flip it on them,” Ramey said. “We just knew we wanted to attack them early, and that’s what we did. They fought back in the second half but I think our leadership and our experience helped us win.”
Texas guard Courtney Ramey dances and holds a championship poster after winning the 2020 Maui Invitational, which was held in North Carolina.
Two years later, Ramey is one of the leaders for a different team, and in a different Maui Invitational location.
Maui, that is.
The 2022 event will be held at its traditional Lahaina Civic Center site for the first time since 2019, with last season’s event also moved, to Las Vegas, because of continuing COVID restrictions in Hawaii.
Playing on Maui is not all that Ramey has to look forward to this time. It will also be his season debut, thanks to a three-game NCAA suspension Ramey received for playing in a predraft camp that was not certified by the NCAA.
The suspension was the first of its kind, because Ramey was playing in the Portsmouth Invitational, an event that never needed to be NCAA-certified because it was only open to seniors who had exhausted their college eligibility.
Except, in part because of what happened to the Maui Invitational and all of college basketball under the significant COVID restrictions of 2020-21, the NCAA granted anyone who played that season an extra year of eligibility. That meant that fourth-year seniors suddenly could play a fifth.
Portsmouth was not held in 2021, meaning the 2022 event was the first time a fourth-year senior could play in it and conceivably return to college.
Ramey was the first, and so far only, player in that category.
“I don’t think they really did a good job of explaining, but I shouldn’t get into detail because it’s nothing I can change,” Ramey said. “For me, it was an opportunity to play in front of the scouts. Then ultimately I made the decision to come back to college. I didn’t think that event would cost me three games but I can’t go back and change it.”
Ramey withdrew from the NBA Draft on the June 1, then committed to Arizona nine days later. Then the three-game suspension landed — one UA game for each of the three Portsmouth games he played in — and Ramey’s appeal failed.
“It was a gray area, but Tommy (Lloyd, UA coach) just told me, ‘Why dwell on something you can’t change?’” Ramey said, adding that other staffers told him the same thing. “I was like, ‘You’re right. If I keep these negative thoughts in my head, it’s just gonna keep me back instead of me moving past it.’”
Still, it wasn’t easy. Point guard Kerr Kriisa, who developed a close relationship with Ramey when the Wildcats recruited Ramey last spring, said he knew it was painful for Ramey to sit out but said Ramey responded by working out “three, four times a day.”
Lloyd noticed.
“Courtney’s an awesome person,” Lloyd said. “He took one on the chin having to sit out those three games, but that’s how it goes. He handled it with class. He practiced well, worked out extra and I know he’s fired up to be playing Monday evening.”
So are his teammates.
“Courtney brings us the experience, the toughness and coming from Texas, the defensive stuff we need,” Kriisa said. “He’s just a really good player.”
While Kriisa remains the Wildcats’ top point guard, Ramey is expected to start off the ball while either he or freshman Kylan Boswell takes over on the ball when Kriisa is out.
Kriisa said he didn’t expect a big change ahead, since Ramey has been practicing fully during his suspension and even took first-team reps before the Utah Tech game on Thursday.
But there’s no question the Wildcats are expected to be better with Ramey.
“Obviously, Courtney is a great defender so it probably helps me play a little bit off the ball — I don’t always have to guard the point guard, which is better for me,” Kriisa said. “He’s obviously better at it than I am, too, so it might be even better for the team.”
Debuting now means Ramey will go straight into high-level competition. After facing Cincinnati on Monday, the Wildcats will play a second game against either 17th-ranked San Diego State or Ohio State on Tuesday, likely followed by either No. 9 Arkansas, No. 10 Creighton or No. 23 Texas Tech in their final game Wednesday.
The games will also be played in front of actual fans at a 2,400-seat arena on a volcanic slope, directly across the street from a beach and the Pacific Ocean.
Not that Ramey will notice any of that.
“I’m a basketball guy, so you can put me out outside in the park,” Ramey said. “Doesn’t matter where I play at.”
