For the 24th time in school history, the Aggies will be participating in the Big Dance.
No. 18 Utah State earned an at-large berth. It was the fifth time the Aggies have been invited to the NCAA Tournament when not winning a conference tournament and the automatic berth, including 2006, 2010, 2021 and 2023.
USU will be playing in the Midwest Region and were given the eighth seed for the region. The eighth seed ties the 2019 USU team for the highest seed in school history. The Aggies (27-6) will face ninth-seeded TCU from the Big 12 Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Horned Frogs (21-12) also got an at-large berth.
The game will be played at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis on Friday. It is scheduled to tip off at 7:55 p.m. and will be broadcast on TBS.
“Obviously, this is the best day of the year for college basketball,” USU head coach Danny Sprinkle said to a media gathering after the Selection Show. “It’s a tremendous honor to play in the NCAA Tournament again. … We are really excited and know we have a tremendous opponent in TCU. I know it will be a tough battle like every Big 12 and Mountain West game is. We are excited to be here and ready to compete.”
The winner of the USU-TCU game will then play the winner of top-seeded Purdue and the play-in game between 16-seeds Montana State and Grambling State on Sunday in Indianapolis.
The Aggies also qualified for the 2020 Tournament as winners of the MW Tournament, but COVID ended up canceling the NCAA Tournament that year.
The team gathered with coaches and USU support staff Sunday afternoon at the West Stadium Center on the USU campus to watch the Selection Show on CBS. The Midwest Region was the third region announced, following the East and South. CBS had a camera at the gathering and got the reaction from players, who were excited but also a bit reserved.
“It was exciting, but I was a little surprised,” said Aggie guard Darius Brown II during a press conference after the selection show when asked his reaction to seeing Utah State on the television screen. “I was looking at a lot of scenarios and was just surprised.
“… I’m not disappointed, but I am surprised. I’m just glad that we are in it. There are worse positions to be in. I think everybody was expecting a little lower, a six or seven, especially with San Diego State being a five. The committee is going to do what the committee does. I’m just glad to be in it.”
Many thought USU, the regular season Mountain West Conference champion, would be seeded sixth or seventh. Sprinkle was not going to get into the seeding.
“It is what it is,” Sprinkle said. “Now we have to go prove it on the court. It was a tremendous league this year. I expect all of the teams in the Mountain West to go and compete and represent really well. In this tournament, it doesn’t matter what seed you are. You’ve got to go play a tremendous opponent. I know our league will represent really well.”
The Mountain West got a record six teams into the NCAA Tournament this year. San Diego State, who reached the national championship game a year ago, received the best seed at No. 5 in the East Region. The Aztecs, who finished fifth this year in the MW but did reach the conference tournament championship game, will play 12th-seeded UAB in Spokane, Washington.
USU got the second-best seed out of the six teams from the Mountain West. Boise State, Colorado State and Nevada are all 10 seeds, while MW Tournament champion New Mexico is an 11 seed. Boise State and Colorado State must play in the First Four. The Broncos will take on Colorado, while the Rams get Virginia. Nevada is in Salt Lake City and meets seventh-seeded Dayton, New Mexico will be in Memphis, Tennessee, and takes on fourth-seeded Clemson.
It is the fifth time in the last six years USU has made the NCAA Tournament. None of the current Aggies, however, have played in a NCAA Tournament as an Aggie. Great Osobor and Brown played with Montana State a year ago, while Ian Martinez played in two games at the Big Dance with Maryland.
“I’m so happy for this team and so glad that we are able to play in the tournament,” Brown said. “For a lot of these guys, it's going to be their first time playing in the tournament. We are going to win, that’s been the goal this whole year, go get an NCAA Tournament win and hopefully we can keep advancing. I’m just so happy for this team.”
This will be the first time that USU and TCU will be playing one another in the NCAA Tournament. Overall, it will be the third meeting in series history as USU posted an 87-61 road win during the 1960-61 season and an 84-59 home win on Dec. 29, 1982.
Sprinkle, the 2023-24 Mountain West Coach of the Year, is coaching in the NCAA Tournament for the third time as he led Montana State to back-to-back appearances in 2022 and 2023. Ironically, this will be the third-straight Big 12 opponent for Sprinkle in the NCAA Tournament as his Bobcats played Texas Tech and Kansas State in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
The Aggies are 6-25 all-time in the NCAA Tournament with their last win coming in 2001, an overtime victory against Ohio State. USU was a 12 seed that season.
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