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The EA Sports Maui Invitational could get increasingly interesting each day for the No. 1 team in the nation.

North Carolina comes to the Valley Isle looking as potentially potent as any team in tournament history - the Tar Heels return all five starters from a Final Four squad that went 36-3 last season, including Wooden Award winner Tyler Hansbrough, and are ranked first in both major polls.

If North Carolina gets by host Chaminade in its opener, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Monday, its semifinal will be against Oregon or Alabama. Possible title-game opponents include Texas, ranked seventh by The Associated Press, or No. 8 Notre Dame.

The Tar Heels are certain to be short-handed.

Hansbrough missed North Carolina's first two games due to a stress reaction in his leg, but might play against UC Santa Barbara today.

One of the players who was getting extra time in Hansbrough's absence, freshman Tyler Zeller, will likely miss the rest of the season with a broken left wrist suffered during Tuesday's 77-58 win over Kentucky.

Marcus Ginyard will be out until mid-December after undergoing surgery on Oct. 8 to repair a stress fracture in his left foot, and Michael Copeland suffered a torn knee ligament in a pickup game in May, had surgery in June and will be out until midseason.

In last week's 86-71 win over Pennsylvania, Zeller scored 17 points, while fellow freshman Ed Davis added 10 points and 14 rebounds. Davis had 10 more rebounds against Kentucky, North Carolina is 10-2 on Maui, with two championships - most recently in 2004, when the Tar Heels also had five starters back from the previous season and went on to win the national title. North Carolina has finished second twice.

Duke holds the record for tournament wins, improving to 12-0 with last year's title.

Hansbrough is one of three Tar Heels on the 50-player preseason watch list for the 2009 Wooden Award, along with Ty Lawson, who had 11 points, nine assists and three steals against Kentucky, and Wayne Ellington, who had 16 points in that game.

''Our guys are really excited about this season and rankings such as this are nice, but we know we have to play well once the season begins,'' North Carolina coach Roy Williams said on the school's Web site last week. ''That's the great thing about college basketball. Rankings are nice, but we don't have to wait for each Monday's poll to come out to see how we fared. We get to play that out on the court.''

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com