UCF men's basketball is heading back to Walt Disney World this Thanksgiving, joining a 10-team field for the 20th annual ESPN Events Invitational at State Farm Field House in Kissimmee. The Knights will play in the tournament's four-team Magic Group alongside Georgia, Cincinnati and Boston College, marking the program's third appearance in the event and its first trip back since 2017.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, pairings for the Magic Group have not yet been announced, but the four teams are set to play two games on Thanksgiving Day and two more on Nov. 27. The larger field also includes a six-team Adventure Group featuring St. Bonaventure, Belmont, Akron, Wright State, Yale and Appalachian State, with those squads playing three games apiece between Nov. 23 and Nov. 25, per the same report. The event, now in its 20th year, has cycled through several names since debuting as the Old Spice Classic in 2006, including the Orlando Classic, the AdvoCare Invitational and the Orlando Invitational, according to Wikipedia.
A Return Trip Two Decades in the Making
UCF previously took part in the tournament in 2007 and again in 2017, when it went 1-2 during the event's AdvoCare Invitational era, opening with a win over Nebraska before falling to No. 20 West Virginia and St. John's, according to UCF Athletics. This time the Knights arrive fresh off a breakthrough season: a 21-12 record, three wins over top-20 opponents during conference play, and the program's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019, where UCF lost to UCLA in the first round, the Sentinel's report notes. UCF also had to replace 100 percent of its scoring production from the previous season to reach the tournament, one of only two Division I programs to pull off that feat, according to Sports Illustrated.
That turnaround came under head coach Johnny Dawkins, who signed a three-year contract extension through the 2028-29 season in May, per WFTV. The extension made Dawkins just the third coach in UCF men's basketball history to lead the program for a full decade, the station reports.
Power-Conference Company in the Magic Group
UCF won't be the only program with recent NCAA Tournament pedigree in the Magic Group. Georgia enters off a 22-11 season, the Bulldogs' winningest regular season in 121 years of intercollegiate competition, and its second straight NCAA Tournament bid, according to the Sentinel. Georgia's 2026-27 non-conference slate also includes a marquee matchup against Duke in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 8, per University of Georgia Athletics.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, finished 18-15 overall after a 9-9 mark in Big 12 play, the same report states. Boston College rounds out the group under new head coach Luke Murray, who spent five seasons as an assistant at Connecticut and helped the Huskies win two national championships, according to the Sentinel. Murray, the son of actor Bill Murray, is tasked with steering Boston College back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009.
Mid-Major Depth Fills Out the Adventure Group
The Adventure Group carries its own competitive weight. Belmont posted a 29-6 record in 2025-26, its 16th consecutive season with at least 20 wins, while Akron also won 29 games and reached its fourth NCAA Tournament in five years, according to St. Bonaventure Athletics. Wright State also reached the 2026 NCAA Tournament, joining Akron, Georgia, Cincinnati and UCF among the field's tournament-tested rosters, per the Sentinel's reporting. St. Bonaventure, Yale and Appalachian State fill out the remaining Adventure Group slots, with Yale coming off an NIT berth.
The tournament is owned and operated by ESPN Events, with the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference serving as the sponsoring host conference, and Gonzaga holds the record for most titles in the event's history with three championships, in 2008, 2012 and 2016, while BYU won last year's Magic bracket. Games will take place at State Farm Field House, a 5,000-seat arena inside the 220-acre ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, according to ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. The Kissimmee venue is no stranger to hosting major amateur and collegiate events, having recently drawn Hoodline's attention when the AAU Boys World Championships returned to the same complex.
UCF's Thanksgiving trip is one piece of a much larger national push by ESPN Events, which oversees nine owned-and-operated early-season tournaments in 2026-27 featuring 33 teams across 12 conferences and more than 80 hours of national broadcast coverage, according to the ESPN Press Room. Eighteen of those 33 teams qualified for the 2026 NCAA Tournament, underscoring the level of competition UCF and its Magic Group counterparts will face on the Kissimmee floor come Thanksgiving week.
