For 30-plus years, Chaminade University’s basketball identity was entrenched as the giant-slaying, annual host of the Maui Invitational.

That changed Wednesday, as the Silverswords were conspicuously absent from the powerhouse eight-team 2018 field sent out by tournament runner KemperLesnik: Arizona, Auburn, Duke, Gonzaga, Illinois, Iowa State, San Diego State and Xavier.

It was announced that the Division II ’Swords, after playing on Maui next month and in 2017, will participate at the Lahaina Civic Center only in alternating years — 2019, 2021 and on. In even years, the field will be fully Division I while Chaminade will play mainland guarantee games at two of those powerhouse programs making their way to Maui.

Chaminade athletic director Bill Villa said the new format is in place until 2030, but it can be “tweaked” after a rotation or two, starting around 2020.

Villa was asked if an intangible part of what made Maui special could be lost by his small school’s absence.

“You know, I guess that’s to be seen,” Villa said. “We don’t know for sure. It’ll certainly be different. We’re going to … try it out for a couple of rotations and then evaluate it. Is it a win-win situation as we anticipated it to be, or is it something that we need to review again? We’ll have a better feel for it after we’ve gone through the rotation one time.”

Maui tournament chairman Dave Odom said Chaminade’s student-athletes will benefit from the broader experience of playing at big venues they wouldn’t get to otherwise, and that the Silverswords’ branding and recruiting opportunities will increase. The decision to change the format was made “jointly,” he said, after more than a year of evaluation.

Maui has long been considered a premier early-season tournament, but its top-tier status has been increasingly rivaled in recent years. Odom said “no question that the competition for teams going to this type of tournament has increased exponentially in the eight years that I’ve been doing it.

“We feel that we have been and will continue to be the No. 1 preseason, holiday basketball tournament going,” Odom said. “I mean, that’s our belief. We feel that. Our goal is always, next year’s tournament is going to be better than the one we just finished.”

Chaminade has occasionally sprung an upset in the Maui Invitational — seven in 32 years. The event was born from the Silverswords’ historic upset of top-ranked Virginia in 1982.

Other times, the Silverswords have been thumped in non-competitive games. For 2018, Odom added San Diego State in Chaminade’s normal slot.

“One of the important aspects of the tournament is the strength of your field,” Odom said. “That’s what fills the Lahaina Civic Center four times a day. It’s what our television partner, ESPN, desires. We try to have a good cross section of teams from the four mainland time zones.

“It behooves us to try to stay ahead of the curve.”

There are no guarantees Chaminade’s road games, part of Maui’s “opening round” series, will be on national TV. And even if the Silverswords were to upset a team on its home court, they would not advance to the “championship” round in Lahaina.

Villa is taking what he called a “glass half-full” approach.

Chaminade has long counted on the visibility Maui affords, wins or losses. Villa said hoops coach Eric Bovaird and his staff will try to sell recruits on the virtues of one or two Maui appearances to go with the new road trips. For the athletic department, the money guarantees from those trips can also help fund other programs.

“We haven’t (taken such trips) because we get the Maui Invitational,” Villa said. “We were going to Maui every year, so it wasn’t something we were looking at as an option. Now it’s a whole different chance, an opportunity for our guys. We’re looking at optimistically, see how it goes, you know?”