LOS ANGELES - The UCLA men’s basketball team will face Oklahoma in its first game of the 2014 Battle 4 Atlantis on Paradise Island near Nassau, Bahamas on Wednesday, Nov. 26.
UCLA’s game versus Oklahoma will be nationally televised by ESPN2, slated for tipoff at 11:30 a.m. (PT) inside the 3,900-seat Imperial Arena inside the Atlantis resort. The eight-team bracket was announced earlier Tuesday by ESPN.com.
The Bruins will face either Butler or North Carolina on Thursday, Nov. 27, the second day of the three-day tournament. The four teams on the opposite side of the bracket from UCLA include Alabama-Birmingham (UAB), Florida, Georgetown and Wisconsin. UCLA will play one of those four schools on Friday, Nov. 28.
The Bruins went 28-9 last season, winning the Pac-12 Tournament before advancing to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 for the first time since 2008. With head coach Steve Alford entering his second season at UCLA (his 24th year as a collegiate head coach), the Bruins will return eight letterwinners from last season’s team, highlighted by senior Norman Powell, junior Tony Parker and sophomore Bryce Alford.
UCLA has gone 3-0 all-time against Oklahoma, with the most recent victory taking place Jan. 4, 1975, in Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins won that game, 111-66, during the final season of head coach John Wooden’s career.
Oklahoma went 23-10 last year, including a 12-6 record in Big 12 Conference action. Oklahoma lost to North Dakota State in overtime, 80-75, in a second-round meeting of the 2014 NCAA Tournament. The Sooners are led by head coach Lon Kruger, entering his fourth season at the helm of Oklahoma’s basketball program.
All Battle 4 Atlantis games will be broadcast live on ESPN, ESPN2 or AXS TV. AXS TV is available nationally on AT&T U-verse (channel 1106), DirecTV (channel 340), Dish Network (channel 167), Verizon FiOS (channel 569) as well as Charter, Comcast/Xfinity, Suddenlink and other cable, satellite and telco providers. The network is also distributed in Canada, Mexico and the Carribean. Go to axs.tv/subscribe for local listings.
This will mark the fourth year of the Battle 4 Atlantis. Previous winners include Harvard in 2011, Duke in 2012 and Villanova in 2013.
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