UCLA men earn No. 7 seed, will face Utah State in NCAA Tournament
LOS ANGELES — The UCLA men’s basketball team earned a seven-seed in the NCAA Tournament, as announced on Sunday’s selection show on CBS. The Bruins (22-10 overall, 13-7 Big Ten) will face 10th-seeded Utah State on Thursday at 6:25 p.m. PT in Lexington, Kentucky.
UCLA missed the NCAA Tournament last season but restocked its roster with five key transfers who helped lead the Bruins to a fourth-place finish in their first season in the Big Ten and an NCAA Tournament berth.
“Last year was a tough year for us, so we’re excited to be back in March Madness,” UCLA head coach Mick Cronin said in a press conference following Selection Sunday. “Everything we do, we talk about with this team, is to get to this point, this moment. So we’re fired up.”
The Bruins will face a Utah State team that finished third in the Mountain West conference and lost 83-72 to Colorado State in the Mountain West Tournament semifinals. The Aggies (26-7 overall, 15-5 Mountain West) have the 17th-ranked offense, per KenPom, but their defense ranks 149th. Their biggest win of the season came on Dec. 22, at St. Mary’s, who also earned a seven-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Aggies head coach Jerrod Calhoun is in his first season at Utah State, who has had three different coaches in the last three seasons, yet has made the NCAA Tournament three consecutive times. Ian Martinez leads the Aggies with 16.8 points per game and Mason Falslev averages 14.9 while leading the team with 6.2 rebounds per game. Both players were key contributors to the Aggies team that made the Round of 32 last season.
UCLA and Utah State have faced each other just once, in 2000, but Bruins head coach Mick Cronin has a familiarity with Calhoun. While Cronin was the head coach at Cincinnati, Calhoun was also in Ohio at Youngstown State. The two also overlapped for one season (2003-2004) as assistants on Bob Huggins’ coaching staff at Cincinnati.
“Jerrod Calhoun is a close friend of mine,” Cronin said. “He’s a great young coach.”
Cronin said that he and Calhoun had texted about the possibility of matching up. He’s watched a number of the Aggies games this season in support of Calhoun and was especially tuned in when they faced New Mexico because its coach, Richard Pitino, is also a colleague.
Cronin also watched the film of Utah State’s 77-72 win over Iowa in preparation for the Bruins’ game against the Hawkeyes on Jan. 17.
“I’m well aware of what they do,” he said about the Aggies.
The Aggies are one of the top mid-major programs in the nation and will be a tough opponent.
UCLA’s resume — a fourth-place finish in a top conference, plus nine Quad 1 wins — is comparable to that of teams that earned four seeds or better. The Bruins, however, find themselves sitting well below that line.
That being said, over the last few weeks, Cronin has diminished the importance of seeding. Rather, he feels that health and location are more significant factors in determining a team’s fate in March Madness.
“I’m jaded because two years ago, I thought we were probably the favorite to win the National Championship until Jaylen Clark and Adem Bona went down,” he said.
These Bruins have no injuries to report, with just three practices remaining before the NCAA Tournament. Cronin knocked on wood when addressing this topic. He knows how fortunate he is given the physicality in the Big Ten, along with the travel UCLA accumulated from four separate Big Ten road trips, a trip to New York to play North Carolina, and a trip to Indianapolis for the Big Ten Tournament.
So, UCLA is in a good spot health-wise, but it will embark on far-away another road trip. Its first round and potential second round game will be in Kentucky, and the Midwest Regional is set for Indianapolis.
The Bruins are 2-8 in their games played outside of the Pacific time zone. Seven of those losses came in front of rowdy Big Ten crowds, where UCLA fans were few and far between. While travel may be a factor here, with Utah State as the opponent, UCLA shouldn’t have to deal with an away-crowd disadvantage.
The Bruins are 4-4 in their last eight games and don’t hold as much momentum as they’d like heading into the NCAA Tournament. Therefore, they’ll have to draw on the seven-game win streak they put together during late January and early February to figure out how to string wins together again.
“We know that we’re a team that could beat anybody,” guard Skyy Clark said on Sunday. “So we can definitely put together a win streak.”
That seven-game surge, though, included five home games and away games at Washington and USC. So, the Bruins will have to prove they can win outside of their comfort zone — and their time zone — if they want to dance long into March.