SAN DIEGO — UC San Diego will play the Big Ten Tournament champion Michigan Wolverines in their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament on Thursday evening.
The Tritons (30-4), who defeated UC Irvine in the Big West Conference title game on Saturday to claim an automatic berth, are seeded 12th in the South Region. They’ll take on the 5th-seeded Wolverines Thursday in Denver.
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, No. 5 seeds are 90-46 against No. 12 seeds.
UCSD has won its last 15 games in a row and take a 30-4 record to the tournament in their first year of eligibility after moving up to Division I in 2020.
The Tritons are led by guard-forward Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, the Big West Conference’s Player of the Year. The 6-foot-6-inch senior from Wellington, New Zealand led the team in scoring, averaging 19.5 points per game, and rebounding, averaging 5.5 per game.
Guard-forward Tyler McGhie was also a first-team all-conference selection for averaging 16.4 points per game.
Hayden Gray was the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year and among 10 finalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, which will be presented at the Final Four. The 6-foot-4-inch senior point guard leads the nation with 109 steals and 3.21 steals per game.
Michigan defeated Wisconsin Sunday to win the Big Ten tournament and reach the NCAA tournament in their first year under Head Coach Dusty May, who was the head coach of the Florida Atlantic team that lost to SDSU in the national semifinal in 2023.
The Wolverines improved to 25-9 in their first season under Dusty May, who coached Florida Atlantic to the 2023 Final Four, after going 8-24 the previous season under Juwan Howard, who was fired two days after the conclusion of the season. The 24 losses were a school record.
Michigan’s 16-player roster includes 11 new players — two graduate transfers, four junior transfers, one sophomore transfer and four freshmen.
Gametime is at 7 p.m. PT and will be televised on TBS.
The winner will advance to face the winner of Thursday’s game between fourth-seeded Texas A&M and 13th-seeded Yale on Saturday.
