Michigan State basketball's 2024 Maui Invitational first-round opponent revealed

Michigan State basketball is taking part in the most prestigious non-conference basketball tournament this year as it will head west to Hawaii to participate in the Maui Invitational.

This tournament is always the most viewed in the country and brings some of the best teams in the country together to battle it out. This year will be no different.

This years field consists of two-time defending national champion UConn along with Memphis, Colorado, Auburn, Iowa State, North Carolina, and Dayton.

We’ve known for about a year now that Michigan State will participate and play three games during the event, but the matchups had not been released. That however has changed on Monday as Jon Rothstein with CBS Sports has released the opening round matchups for the Maui Invitational.

According to Rothstein, Michigan State will face Colorado in their opening round matchup. Usually the event will prevent the top programs from facing each other in the first round, so thankfully MSU avoided both North Carolina and UConn. But Colorado won’t be a pushover by any means.

Last year, Colorado had one of their better seasons in recent history as they finished 26-11. Colorado also made the NCAA tournament and even won one game before being knocked out in the Round of 32.

The full bracket hasn’t been released yet, so we still don’t know who Michigan State could face in the second round. Hopefully however Michigan State can get lucky and avoid UConn and North Carolina to increase their chances of advancing. Auburn and Iowa State however will both be very good teams as well, so there really won’t be an easy path to winning this tournament.

The last time MSU played in Maui was in 2019 when they shockingly lost to Virginia Tech in the first round. They did bounce back however with wins against Georgia and UCLA to finish the tournament 2-1.

Hopefully this year will be better and Michigan State will stay in contention for the championship for much longer. MSU has only won this tournament once in their five appearances with Tom Izzo going 0-4 in his four appearance as head coach, so let’s hope they can make it two titles as a program later this year and give Izzo his first.