LA JOLLA, Calif. – As the Triton basketball programs enter their final season of a NCAA-mandated 4-year transition period toward full Division I membership, the UC San Diego athletic department has secured a limited block of tickets for the upcoming 2024 Hercules Tires Big West Basketball Championship.
Scheduled for March 13-16 at The Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev., the top eight men's and women's basketball teams (minus the Tritons – this season), qualify for the championship and the right to compete for The Big West's automatic qualification into the NCAA Championships.
Ticket packages offered through the Triton Box Office include admission to every men's and women's session of the 4-day event. Women's tournament ticket seating is general admission, while the men's tickets are reserved and located in a specific block with other UC San Diego Triton fans. Single session tickets will not be offered through the Triton Box Office.
In addition to championship event admission, tickets purchased through the Triton Box Office will include priority seat locations for future Big West Basketball championships in which the Tritons participate, invitations to Triton fan events (starting in 2025) and priority on additional seat purchases.
Las Vegas has quickly become the epicenter of college basketball in March with several conference tournaments taking place in the area, including the Big West, Mountain West, Pac-12, West Coast and Western Athletic conferences. The Big West moved its championship to the state-of-the-art Dollar Loan Center in 2022 after conducting the 2021 event at the Michelob Ultra Arena during COVID and the previous nine tournaments at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.
UC San Diego officially began competition as a member of The Big West in fall, 2020 – the first of its 4-year NCAA transition period. During the transition, Triton sports teams are not eligible for postseason NCAA or Big West competition. In 2023, the Triton baseball team claimed the program's first Big West regular season championship.
The Tritons will conclude their transition this summer and will be eligible for championship competition in the fall.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Divisions I and II.
