Switching gears to men's basketball with the football team currently in a bye week, Washington athletics announced today that the team will play in the Maui Invitational next year, during the 2026-27 season.
The Maui Invitational is one of many tournaments that programs across college basketball compete in early in the season before conference play starts, but this invitational is one of the more prestigious – dating back to when it was first played in 1984.
Each year powerhouse programs travel to the Lahaina Civic Center in Maui, Hawaii to get a get their feet wet against non-conference opponents that are typically stronger than the usual mid-major programs played against at the beginning of seasons. The blue-blood Duke Blue Devils have the most championships in the tournament's history, with five.
In the 2026 tournament, Washington will play in a field that consists of Arizona, BYU, Clemson, Colorado State, Ole Miss, Providence, and VCU. Each of those teams bring an intriguing reputation – either as a perennial national contender like Arizona, a consistent NCAA tournament-caliber team in recent years like Clemson and Ole Miss, or as a rising challenger in a new era of NIL like BYU and VCU.
Aside from former Pac-12 adversary Arizona, Colorado State is the program in the field that Washington has the most recent familiarity with – matching up against each other in early-season tournaments in each of the last two seasons, with both teams securing wins.
The champions of the the Maui Invitational have been a pretty good indicator of who will go on to be a dangerous force in postseason play. Last year's champion was Auburn, a program that went on to be the No. 1 seed in both the SEC and NCAA tournament, and eventually reach the Final Four.
The year before that, Purdue won the Maui Invitational – proceeding to go 34-4 and make an appearance in the NCAA Championship game. Other programs like Michigan, Kentucky, North Carolina, and UConn have previously won the Maui Invitational and NCAA Championship in the same season (UNC doing so three times).
This news is exciting for Huskies' basketball as it tries to revive itself after years of mediocrity. Unless an unforeseen firing happens, head coach Danny Sprinkle will be in his third season with Washington for the Maui Invitational, and will hopefully be following up an improved season this year. Sprinkle will also have several four-star recruits be more developed by then, assuming of course that none of them are lost to the transfer portal.