Arizona Basketball Will be Heading to Major Invitational in 2026

We are a long way out from the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season, which will yet again have high expectations for Arizona basketball and head coach Tommy Lloyd with a team that will more than likely be ranked inside the preseason AP Poll top 15.

Despite losing in the Sweet Sixteen 100-93 against No.

1 seed Duke, Arizona will welcome back four key players from last years team and the nations No.

5 recruiting class that features two 5-star recruits in a class of seven prospects.

The seven player class is headlined by Koa Peat, Brayden Burries and Dwayne Aristode with all three ranking in the top 100 of 24/7 Sports recruiting database.

Throughout the time that Lloyd has been the head coach of Arizona, the Wildcats have gone 112-33 making the NCAA Tournament every season and have gone as far as the Sweet Sixteen three times with one first-round exit to Princeton during the 2022-23 season.

This past year, Arizona was able to finish No.

3 in the Big 12 Conference in the teams first year after coming from the Pac-12.

The conference is loaded with elite teams and coaches with seven teams making the NCAA Tournament and all being seeded as a 9-seed, or higher.

When looking at the landscape of college basketball there is no question that the Big 12 sits as one of the top, if not the very top basketball conference in the country.

With Lloyd as head coach, Arizona has played in some challenging non-conference games and will do so again this upcoming season with Florida, UCLA, San Diego State, Alabama, Auburn and UConn all on the schedule.

Arizona will go up against some of the best teams nationally, which not only helps the Wildcats grow but also puts the conference in the national spotlight in prime time games.

Now, Arizona has announced that it will be playing in the 2026 Southwest Maui Invitational which will include a field of BYU, Clemson, Colorado State, Ole Miss, Providence, Washington and VCU.

This will be the second time under coach Lloyd that Arizona has played in this event.

The last time during the 2022-23 season, the Wildcats won the invitational in a thrilling 81-79 (0T) win over Creighton.

Overall, Arizona has won the invitational three times, which gives them the third most titles in the event all-time behind Duke and North Carolina.

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