Aloha, from Maui

While you were home this past week enjoying Thanksgiving with relatives, I hopped a plane to the south pacific and spent the holiday with my family in the tropical paradise that is Maui.\nBut rather than sit on the beach and sip piña coladas with the drop-dead-gorgeous, 5-foot-9 blonde that tagged along, I was working for you, the reader, so I would have something to report when I came back. I was watching basketball at the annual EA Sports Maui Invitational. \nHonestly, going to Maui and watching basketball is like going to the Playboy mansion and admiring the landscaping. But there I was, packed into the Lahaina Civic Center like a sardine, surviving the 100-degree heat in the building and the acrid smell of the Iowa fan next to me (I swear the guy smelled like Tara Reid after a night on the town). So here are my three biggest observations from a week spent sweating more than Ruben Studdard after five minutes on a treadmill.\nNorth Carolina is good. I don't mean college good, I mean LeBron James good. They are that special team that only comes around every so often. They cruised to the tournament title with ease. Their big three -- Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants -- dominated the tournament. \nMay, the son of former Hoosier and National Player of the Year Scott May, is a complete post player. He runs the floor, has every post move and rebounds better than Justin Timberlake after the Britney break-up. May went to Bloomington North High School, and I just have one question: How did we ever let him get out of town? Hey, Mike Davis, you know that post presence we've been missing for three years? It's in Chapel Hill playing for the Tar Heels. \nFelton, the tournament's MVP, is the best point guard I've seen in years. He runs the show when he is on the floor and might be the best all-around player in the country. McCants can score at any time from any place on the floor. If he can avoid going "Ron Artest" on someone, UNC should be the favorites when March rolls around. \nIowa might be the surprise team of the year. Paced by sharp-shooting point guard Jeff Horner and the explosive Pierre Pierce, the Hawkeyes knocked off two top-15 teams while in Maui and should make some noise in the Big Ten if they can play the way they did in Hawaii. They have a solid inside-out game, with Greg Brunner's post moves and the shot-blocking of Erek Hansen. Hansen, a 6-foot-11 junior, has developed nicely, but to be more effective, he needs to add some weight to his lanky frame. Seriously, the guy needs a steak worse than Mary-Kate Olsen.\nTennessee freshman guard Chris Lofton is a scoring machine. After being named Kentucky's Mr. Basketball last year, Lofton was passed over by Louisville and Kentucky during recruiting and is playing with a chip on his shoulder. He dropped 22 points on North Carolina in the semifinal game, and after three games, Lofton is shooting 53 percent from beyond the 3-point line. If this diapered dandy had any help at all, Tennessee could be a decent team -- the problem is he doesn't.\nI can't complain about my time in Maui. The weather was great, the locals were friendly and the beer was cheap. The only thing that went wrong was our movie choice one night. We saw "Alexander," and after watching that disaster they called a movie, I've decided Oliver Stone should never be allowed to make a movie again ... but that's a whole other column.