Back from Maui Invitational

I am back in California, having returned from a really nice Maui Invitational. The Illini had a good trip, with three victories on the Islands, and the loss to Duke.

I had some unique opportunities to see the players and coaches close up on Maui. We stayed at the same hotel as the teams from Duke, Princeton and Chaminade. For all of the negative press about college athletes getting in trouble, I never saw any bad behavior from these players. In fact, they were all extremely polite.

It would have been nice to see more of the Illini players, but as I mentioned earlier, wrong hotel. I did jog over there one day, and had an opportunity to run into Coach Weber with his family heading to the beach. I gave him a break and left him alone, since it is nice he takes time out for his family while on a basketball trip.

Last night on the flight back to San Francisco, we were on the same flight as the Cowboys of Oklahoma State. This was their first leg of three flights to get them back to Stillwater, Oklahoma. The players seem determined to not let the Maui losses set them back on their season, since it's a long season that just got started. Sean Sutton, their head coach, was able to joke with them about their situation of being cramped in coach seats, even though several are 6-8 and taller. He said something about had they won, they would be sitting in the front of the plane eating steak. Since they lost, they would be eating dog food (Alpo) instead, when they got back home. He had a big grin on his face, so he has a nice sense of humor. These players were also very polite and well-behaved on the flight, even though they had a disappointing tourney for them.

The flight crew from United did something I have never seen before. Rather than making the players put their legs in front of them (nearly impossible for some in the 767 coach configuration), they let them put their legs and feet in the aisles most of the flight, and avoided using the aisle as much as possible. It was a red-eye flight, so this was easy for the flight crew.