While the opposite side of the bracket includes games between 2016 national runner-up North Carolina and Chaminade, and Oklahoma State and UConn.
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Reigning Pac-12 champion OR also has Final Four potential after falling just one win short of making it to Houston last spring. The loser of that game will play the loser of the Volunteers/Badgers game on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. HST (1:30 p.m. EST). ESPN has UConn ranked 20th heading into the season and UNC ranked 6th. The Tar Heels also landed on the opposite side of the bracket from Wisconsin and OR, both of which may join North Carolina in the preseason top 10 next fall.
No. 9 Wisconsin and No. 10 OR are on the other side of the bracket.
Depending on the results, Georgetown will either face Tennessee or Wisconsin.
OR was a No. 1 seed in the 2016 NCAA Tournament. The two programs, along with Wisconsin, earned berths to the Sweet 16. We already knew the eight teams competing in this year’s event and now we know the first-round games.
This will be just the second meeting between the Cowboys and Huskies, and the first since 1970. OSU won the only other matchup, 80-64, in Lafayette, La., on December 18, 1970. With a win, UConn would go on to play the victor of North Carolina against Chaminade on November 22.
The Tar Heels placed third in their most recent Maui appearance four years ago.
All 12 Championship Round games of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational will be televised on the ESPN networks.
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The Vols open at Thompson-Boling Arena with an exhibition against Slippery Rock on November 3 and start the regular-season schedule at home on November 11 against Chattanooga.
