Throwback Thursday: The New Wave of Exempt Tournaments

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Thanksgiving commemorates a time where we recall early settlers from Britain giving thanks for a bountiful harvest following a very harsh winter in colonial Massachusetts. In recent years, we’ve also become more thankful for a bounty of college basketball games in and around Thanksgiving (and the occasional Christmas for teams who travel to either Hawai’i or Las Vegas). While exempt tournaments originally began in places like Maui, Alaska and Madison Square Garden (the heyday of the Preseason NIT), we have now seen places like Orlando (Old Spice/Advocare Classic), Puerto Rico, the Bahamas (Battle 4 Atlantis), Charleston, Las Vegas in November and Anaheim (Wooden Legacy) also host these events featuring teams from all the major conferences and even a few under-the-radar conferences. We have also seen events in places like Chicago (the Chicago Invitational) come and go as well.

For starters, ESPN Wide World of Sports has hosted the Orlando Classic/Old Spice Classic/Advocare Invitational since 2006. This tournament is actually hosted by the Metro Atlantic Conference; the conference has had 1 team in each tournament since its inception. Monmouth had by far the best showing with a 3rd place finish last year thanks to wins over Notre Dame and USC. Gonzaga is the only two-time winner of this event; they have won all 6 games in this event thanks to tournament championships in 2008 and 2012 (they can also go for a 3rd title this year as well). Dayton comes in a close 2nd – they won the Old Spice Classic in 2011 but were spanked by their old friends from Xavier in the championship of the Advocare Invitational last season. Kansas also beat Michigan State in the 2014 Old Spice championship, although both teams were not in their customary Top 10 spots at the time.

Anaheim is now going to be hosting an exempt tournament for the tenth consecutive season. It began as the 76 Classic in 2007 through 2010, was branded as the Anaheim Classic in 2011 and the DirecTV Classic in 2012. For the first 6 years, all games were played at the Anaheim Convention Center. Ever since 2013, it has been renamed the Wooden Legacy. It now features the first 2 rounds at Cal State-Fullerton’s Titan Gym and the final round at the Honda Center in Anaheim. The tournaments have been hosted by the Big West Conference since its inception. This tournament has featured 9 different champions, although one could argue that its most marquee field was last year that involved Michigan State, Providence and Arizona. This year promises to be even better with teams like UCLA, Dayton, Virginia Tech and Texas A&M all participating.

There are also 2 different locales that also feature their games played in a hotel ballroom – Cancun and the Bahamas (Atlantis). The Battle 4 Atlantis has a fairly recent tradition since 2011, but unlike the previous events listed above, this event has played host (or will play host) to just about every major program in Division I. Duke? Check. Kansas? Check. Villanova? Check. Michigan State? They’ll check it off this year. UCLA? North Carolina? You get the picture. So naturally, the first team to win this event was Harvard back in 2011. Their path included Utah, Florida State and Central Florida. The host conference for this event is Conference USA. Also noteworthy here is that the last 2 champions of this event have also gone on to the Final 4 – Syracuse in 2015 and Wisconsin in 2014.

As for the state of Hawai’i, what was originally the Rainbow Classic has now evolved into the Diamond Head Classic around Christmas time. In its current format, Hawai’i has been part of every single tournament in the same manner that Chaminade has been the host school for the Maui Invitational. Two of the past champions have also been part of the Final Four at the end of the year – Butler in 2010 (the year of their second appearance in the national title game) and Oklahoma last season.