Indiana Basketball: Early look at the 2020 Maui Invitational

The Indiana basketball team will head to Maui in 2020 for the annual Maui Jim Maui Invitational. The tournament will take place during Thanksgiving week.

The Hoosiers basketball schedule in 2019-20 was not the toughest, especially their November games. It was a big reason why they never broke into the AP Top 25 last year even though they had a very good record early on.

Their schedule got tougher when the calendar turned to December, but their non-conference schedule overall was not very good. The level of play in the Big Ten is what would have helped the Hoosiers make the tournament.

The 2020-21 schedule hasn’t been released yet, but the Hoosiers should have a much tougher non-conference schedule mostly because they head to Hawaii for the annual Maui Jim Maui Invitational.

The Hoosiers will still have some cupcake games as it has already been reported that they will play NJIT and Robert Morris. Two games that shouldn’t be a problem for the Hoosiers. At that will seem very familiar for Indiana fans.

But hopefully, they are less of those games and the schedule is much tougher. Indiana should get a decent ACC opponent for the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. They will hopefully get to be a part of the Gavitt Tipoff Games and play a good opponent from the Big East.

Add in playing Butler or Notre Dame in the Crosstown Classic and this could shape up to be a much better slate of games for the Hoosiers. The complaint lately has been how weak the non-conference schedule has been for Indiana and how it doesn’t really get them ready for the Big Ten.

This year should be much different, but nothing will compare to when the Hoosiers head out to Maui for one of the best preseason tournaments in college basketball.

It may be a long time until the basketball season happens, but let’s take an early look at the Maui Jim Maui Invitational.