It doesn't have palm trees and beaches, but in some respects, the fifth annual Great Lakes Invitational is more important for college Division III basketball fans than the long-running Division I Maui Invitational, held annually in Hawaii. 

Why? 

It's a "best of different regions" event, where teams from all over the United States come to Region VII (Great Lakes) of the NCAA Division and compete in two-day, two-game contests against some of the region's strongest programs. This year New Hampshire's Keene State Univ. and Maryville College, some 950 miles apart from each other, will both descend on Crawfordsville, Indiana, and Wabash College to see just how good their new players are and to see well how they stack up against terrific teams from a different region of the U.S. 

"This event has really blown up over the last five years," says Wabash basketball head coach Kyle Brumett. "It first got my attention when coaches Mike Dewitt and Nate Axelrod had their run to the top of the NCAC and NCAA tournament success at Ohio Wesleyan Univ. 

"I was trying to build our program and help Jack Davidson to be an all-American, even the best player in the country," Brumett continues.  "Mike said we needed to play in some events to get Jack seen by people outside the NCAC and the Midwest.  He suggested this event.
 
"So, I really wanted to get our team to the Great Lakes Invitational (GLI), and I wanted to play at Maretta, "Brumett adds. "As (tournament founder) Ryan Whitnable and I started to have conversations, the passion in Ryan for Div. III basketball and the small college experience for our athletes was obvious. I knew I wanted to try to get the event at Wabash." 
 
RYAN'S BRAINCHILD 
Whitnable works as an internal auditor for a major automotive company in Toledo. He's a proud graduate of Marietta College, but he didn't play basketball there. But he was present when Marietta began a multi-decade ascent to basketball excellence. 

"My senior year of college (2010-11) was the year Marietta finally broke out as a program under Coach Jon VanderWal. Everyone in town was basketball mad," Whitnable recalls. "I started playing around with the This Week in Great Lakes Basketball podcast the year after college, and it has slowly grown in size and scope over the next several, especially once the GLI got going."  

From that and from the knowledge he gained from learning about how the NCAA Division III basketball tournament selection committee works, Whitnable came up with the idea for holding the GLI tournament. It began at Marietta in November 2017, except for the Covid-19 year (2020), it's become an annual fixture for Midwest small college basketball. 

"The GLI tournament was designed to do a couple of things: First, Pair up four of the best programs from the traditional Great Lakes Region with power programs from the rest of the country at a first-rate host/facility," Whitnable explains. "It also provides quality programs with NCAA Tournament aspirations the ability to test themselves against other strong programs with an opportunity to build up their tournament resume (and subsequently a boost in their non-conference Strength of Schedule component)."
 
There's an additional benefit too. Whitnable points out that in terms of the importance later in the season for pollsters and ultimately for the committee that selects the NCAA Tournament, the GLI tournament games provide quality data points (head-to-head matchups) that can be the make or break for a team trying to obtain a Pool C selection (at-large). Most, but not all, teams enter the DIII national tournament by winning a conference championship. So, the GLI provides help for some colleges in case they don't win that tournament." 

Whitnable's tournament formula works. Kevin Smith is the Sports Information Director at the College of Wooster, a long-time NCAA Div. III basketball tournament qualifier. Wooster has hosted the GLI Tournament once. 

"With so many quality programs in the region, the Great Lakes Invitational is a prime showcase of what NCAA Div. III has to offer in a large classic format. Ryan Whitnable is able to pull together a field showcasing several of the region's elite teams, plus others from across the country," Smith says. "Midwest host institutions make this event attractive to other top programs looking to build resumes with signature wins against programs they would likely not compete with otherwise due to travel considerations most programs face for just a single out-of-conference game. Players and fans should expect two full days of high-quality, action-packed basketball from start to finish."  
 
WABASH ECSTATIC OVER THE TOURNAMENT AND ITS BENEFITS 
Little Giant players, parents and alumni are all excited about the GLI tournament coming to Crawfordsville. 
 
"I've been around the Wabash athletics department long enough to know that they are an impressive, well-oiled machine, and if anyone can pull off a tournament of this magnitude Wabash can," says Meg Comer, whose son, Sam, is a junior forward on the Wabash team. 
 
"It (the GLI) is a prestigious tournament with teams coming from all over," Comer adds. "We played some tough teams in Marietta last November and I know that those games helped us prepare for the NCAA Tournament run that we made in March."  
 
Perhaps no one can attest to the mental toughness and preparation that Great Lake Invitational affords the Little Giants more than 2022 graduating senior Jack Davidson.  
 
The Jostens Trophy Award winner as the NCAA Division III Most Outstanding Men's Basketball Player for the 2021-2022 season, Davidson finished his four years at Wabash with a school record 2,464 points in 110 career starts for a 22.4 points-per-game average, also a school record. He owns the Wabash mark for free throws made with 718 in his career and ranks second in all-time assists for the Little Giants with 377. He also holds the record at all college and professional levels for hitting 95 consecutive free throws during a span of 14 games in 2019. 
 
 "The Great Lakes was a great experience for our team. The atmosphere was electric, and those games against Marietta and Emory gave us two big-time early season tests and allowed us to see where we were as a team," Davidson recalls. "I think having games like that (the GLI) during the season helped us tremendously for the NCAA Tournament." 
 
REFINER, MELTING POT, SCHEDULE, TICKET DETAILS 
 
Eleven colleges have advanced to the NCAA Division III tournament in the same season they played in the Great Lakes Invitational. Perhaps no single tournament was more impressive than the 2021 one, when three teams – Randolph-Macon, Marietta, and Wabash – went on to the D3 Final Four tournament in Fort Wayne, and Randolph-Macon won the national championship. By playing in the GLI, teams gain confidence that they are able to compete on the "big stage" of Div. III March Madness. 
 
The Great Lakes Invitational is also both a microcosm and a melting pot. Players from 25 different states are on the rosters of the eight tournament teams this year. Junior guard Ron Farrell, who is from Washington (state) and transferred to Rose-Hulman from Arizona State, might well see action on the Mac Petty Floor at Wabash's Chadwick Court on Saturday against Trine University's junior forward Emmanuel Megnanglo, who hails from the nation of Benin (just west of Nigeria in Africa) and played high school hoops at Virginia's Amelia Academy. 
 
Here is the tournament schedule: 
 
Friday, November 18
1:00 p.m. – Trine vs. Benedictine
3:00 p.m. – Baldwin Wallace vs. Rose-Hulman
5:30 p.m. – Keene State vs. Maryville
7:30 p.m. – Marietta vs. Wabash
 
Saturday, November 19
1:00 p.m. – Trine vs. Rose-Hulman
3:00 p.m. – Benedictine vs. Baldwin Wallace
5:30 p.m. – Marietta vs. Keene State
7:30 p.m. – Maryville vs. Wabash 
 
Whitnable will announce the 2023 GLI location and competing teams at halftime of Friday night's game between Marietta and Wabash. 
 
TICKET DETAILS 
 
 Adult / Single-Day or Single-Game Admission - $10 
Adult / Two-Day Pass - $15 
  
Senior / Child / Students: Single-Day or Single-Game Admission - $5 
Senior / Child / Students: Two-Day Pass - $8 
  
Wabash students will receive complimentary admission with student ID. 
 
PAST GREAT LAKES INVITATIONAL, Years, Hosts and Teams 
2017 – Marietta College: Teams – Birmingham Southern, Dickinson, Hope, St. John Fisher, Marietta, Mount St. Joseph, Univ. of St. Thomas, and Wittenberg (Marietta and Wittenberg each won two games) 
2018 – Hope College: Teams – Calvin, Hope, La Roche, Mount St. Joseph (only four-team tournament)  
2019 – The College of Wooster: Teams – John Carroll, Marietta, Ohio Wesleyan, Wooster, Keene State, Salisbury Univ, York, and Whitworth Univ. (John Carroll and Wooster each won both games)  
2020 – No tournament (Covid-19) 
2021 – Marietta College: Teams – Emory, Hendrix, La Roche, Marietta, Randolph-Macon, Wabash, Wilmington, and Wittenberg (Randolph-Macon and Wilmington each won both games) 
2022 – Wabash College: Teams – Baldwin Wallace, Benedictine, Keene State, Marietta, Maryville, Rose-Hulman, Trine, and Wabash 

AUTHOR: John Kerezy '77 is currently working on a new book about Olympic great Jesse Owens and will serve as the press room moderator for the 2022 Great Lakes Invitational.