LOS ANGELES — With momentum on its side and a Pac-12 Tournament title in tow, UCLA was named a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s South Region and will face off with 13th-seeded Tulsa at San Diego’s Viejas Arena on Friday.
Tulsa finished tied for first in Conference USA during the regular season, won the conference tournament and takes an 11-game win streak into its matchup with the Bruins. A UCLA victory would set up a matchup with the winner between VCU and Stephen F. Austin on Sunday.
UCLA and Tulsa faced off in the 1994 NCAA Tournament, and the Bruins -- a 5 seed in Oklahoma City -- were upset by the Golden Hurricane, 112-102. Tulsa hasn't been to the Big Dance since 2003, when it lost in its second-round matchup.
This year's Tulsa team is coached by former Kansas star Danny Manning, who won 21 games in his second year as head coach. Manning was college basketball’s National Player of the Year in 1988, one year after former Indiana star and current UCLA coach Steve Alford won the award.
In Alford’s first postseason as UCLA’s coach, the Bruins won their first Pac-12 Tournament title since 2008 with a hard-earned victory over Arizona on Saturday. That statement-making triumph over the Wildcats came after two blowouts in the first two rounds to NCAA Tournament-bound Oregon and Stanford.
With three decisive victories in the conference tournament, UCLA is riding as high as it has all season, with its momentum almost the polar opposite of where it was last season. Then, the Bruins entered the tournament after a season-ending injury to Jordan Adams and a deflating loss in the Pac-12 title game.
That tournament run lasted just one game in Austin, as UCLA was blown out by Minnesota in a 20-point defeat that eventually cost former coach Ben Howland his job.
Alford doesn't have the same sort of NCAA Tournament success as his predecessor, though, with three opening-round losses in his last five appearances in the Big Dance. Last season, Alford's final team at New Mexico was upset by 13 seed Harvard in the Round of 64.
In 11 years as a Division-1 head coach, Alford has been to the Sweet 16 one time, with Southwest Missouri State in 1999.
No comments:
Post a Comment