LA JOLLA, Calif. – UC San Diego, winner of the 2025 Big West Men's Basketball Championship, presented by Credit Union 1, is going dancing and headed to Denver, Colo. in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The Tritons earned the No. 12 seed and will face No. 5 seed Michigan of the Big Ten in the first round of the South Region on Thursday, March 20 at Ball Arena. Thursday's game is scheduled for an 8 p.m. MDT tip-off on TBS. The advancing team will move on to the second round to face the winner of No. 4 seed Texas A&M and No. 13 seed Yale, Saturday.  

UC San Diego (30-4) earned its place in the big dance as The Big West's automatic qualifier after defeating UC Irvine 75-61 in The Big West Championship title game, Saturday night at Lee's Family Forum in Henderson, Nev. Michigan (25-9) is also an automatic qualifier after winning the Big Ten Tournament with a 59-53 win over Wisconsin as the third seed.

This will be the first-ever meeting between Michigan and UC San Diego in men's basketball.

UC San Diego is making its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament in its inaugural year of being postseason eligible after a four-year reclassification period from NCAA Division II.

As a team, UC San Diego have the best turnover margin in the country at +7.2, committing only 8.7 per game (second nationally) and forcing opponents to 15.97 per contest (eighth nationally). The Tritons are also second nationally in steals per game (8.7), second in scoring margin (+18.1), third in assist to turnover ratio (1.82), sixth in scoring defense (61.6) and 11th in field goal percentage defense (.396).

The Tritons are led by senior guard/forward Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, the Big West Player of the Year and the championship's Most Outstanding Player, who averages 19.5 points, on 57.6 percent shooting, with 5.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game. Tait-Jones leads the nation in free throw makes (222) and attempts (293).  Senior guard Hayden Gray has the most steals in the country, logging 3.2 per contest, to go along with 11.2 points and 3.3 assists per game. Senior guard/forward Tyler McGhie makes 3.35 3-pointers per game, the eighth most in NCAA, for a 16.4 points per game average.

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 24-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 84 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.