While there’s still excitement in the opening weeks of the college basketball season, the holiday tournaments is when things really start to get going with the season. A great number of teams are involved in these destination events around Thanksgiving, giving two or three neutral-site games against stronger opponents and a great barometer on how some of these teams stack up early in the year.
The Charleston Classic was founded back in 2008 and returns for its sixteenth iteration, having not been held during the first season during the pandemic. While it’s not the peak holiday tournament, this event has still produced plenty of excitement and intriguing results. In recent years, it’s featured a number of very strong programs. Last year’s tournament was won by an explosive Houston squad that would win the Big 12 while the Charleston squad that took home the title in 2022 would win 31 games.
Obviously, the past is not indicative of the future, and we’re instead turning our attention today towards this newest iteration of the Charleston Classic. This year’s field includes a handful of power conference teams, with all eight programs in pretty solid shape in basketball in recent years. You won’t find any ranked teams and national headlines likely won’t be made in these games, but there’s some good basketball coming to South Carolina this week.
Ahead we’ll be diving closely into each of the eight teams in the event while also making predictions and marking out some expectations for the games ahead. Some of these teams are stronger than others in the field, but it’s hard to look at this field and expect one or two teams to outright dominate. We’re going to get twelve intriguing games this week; let’s start thinking about who might leave South Carolina with a trio of decent wins.