Intercollegiate athletic competition ended at BYU-Hawaii back in 2017, but the school may soon have Division I basketball headed to its campus.
CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported Monday that BYU-Hawaii will host a Division I nonconference basketball tournament, or multiteam event, during Thanksgiving weekend in Laie, Hawaii, called the Northshore Classic.
Sources: A new MTE --- the Northshore Classic --- will be launched during Thanksigiving Weekend on the campus of BYU-Hawaii.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) June 6, 2022
Hawaii will be part of the inaugural field.
While there are few details known about the new event, Rothstein reported Hawaii will play in the inaugural Northshore Classic.
What is an MTE?
Each year, Division I basketball teams are permitted to play in one multiteam event during the nonconference portion of their schedule.
These kinds of early season tournaments allow teams to bolster their NCAA Tournament resumes as they play in multiday events.
“If you’re a college basketball fan, you should follow MTEs closely, because they often mean daytime basketball around the holidays and these events often provide multiple high-level matchups in consecutive days for the teams involved,” NCAA.com’s Andy Wittry wrote last November.
Could a Utah team play in the Northshore Classic?
The Beehive State’s top Division I schools — like most teams around the country, according to Blogging the Bracket — have already locked in their MTE commitments this season, even though BYU played a tournament in the Hawaiian islands last year, and Utah State is headed to Hawaii during Christmas this season.
This year, BYU will be playing in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas during Thanksgiving week, with defending national champion Kansas among the eight high-profile teams playing.
Utah will play in the Fort Myers Tip-Off in Florida during Thanksgiving week, while Utah State is headed to the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii, during Christmas week.
Utah Valley is headed to the Jamaica Classic, according to Blogging the Bracket, while Weber State will play in a new tournament in Las Vegas called the Vegas Championship, according to the Standard-Examiner’s Brett Hein.
What about Dixie State, though? There are no reports on where the school, which is changing its name to Utah Tech next month, may play in an MTE in the upcoming season.
The Trailblazers playing in the Northshore Classic would be interesting, considering Dixie State used to play in the same conference as BYU-Hawaii at the Division II level, the Pacwest Conference, before the Trailblazers jumped to Division I.