NCAA Basketball: 2023 Myrtle Beach Invitational preview and predictions

We’re getting into that wonderful time early in the NCAA basketball season with numerous holiday tournaments. While some of the other professional sports dominated the headlines around Thanksgiving, these tournaments in the coming weeks are excellent events in college ball, giving destination opportunities to literally hundreds of these programs.

Albeit in relative infancy, the Myrtle Beach Invitational will return for the fifth time this season. Run initially in 2018, it was not played in the initial season after the pandemic but has produced exciting basketball in each of its four previous runs. It’s not a tournament overloaded with ranked teams or national contenders, but it did have an exciting title game of Baylor against Villanova just four years ago.

Today isn’t about the past; we’re looking ahead to the future and this fifth installment of the Myrtle Beach Invitational. While there are no ranked or power conference teams in this year’s field, the eight teams descending on Conway, South Carolina could give us a really intriguing tournament, including some very potent mid-major programs from recent years.

We will spend time diving into each of the eight teams invited to the event and making some predictions and analysis based on those teams. With no overwhelming favorite, this could be quite the run of action at Myrtle Beach and could certainly be one of the most competitive holiday tournaments this season. We’ll name some names to watch, run through potential game matchups, and pick who we think the winner might be. Let’s start with some previews on the teams.