Cal basketball will be returning to Hawaii in 2017. The Bears have been invited back to the Maui Invitational.
They will be joined by hosts Chaminade, along with LSU, Marquette, Michigan, Notre Dame, Virginia Commonwealth and Wichita State. This is a STACKED field.
- Notre Dame nearly knocked off undefeated Kentucky last season in the Elite 8 and will be a fixture in the top 25.
- LSU is a tournament caliber team although they will probably lose their own stud in Ben Simmons.
- Marquette has a quality freshmen class and figures to be on the rise.
- Michigan had some deep tournament runs recently.
- VCU will be transitioning to life post-Shaka Smart, but hard to see them dropping off that much.
- And we haven't even gotten to Wichita State, perhaps the most dominant regular season team of the last few years not named Kentucky.
On the Cal basketball recruiting front, point guard Charlie Moore decided to pick Memphis over California and VCU. That leaves the Bears thin at the point in 2016 to replace Tyrone Wallace; it's Sam Singer with Brandon Chauca as the primary backup at this point.
Cal is down to Tyson Jolly (who has signed) and Oscar Frayer (who has not signed, but might be waiting until the spring to sign) as potential incoming freshman, with perhaps one available spot if someone decides to declare early.