The NCAA Tournament is coming back to Ball Arena for the second time in three years. And now, we know who’s coming.
The Mountain West Conference will host men’s basketball games in downtown Denver on Thursday and Saturday. As of last week, there were still tickets available for the two sessions on Thursday and Saturday’s session.
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The big headliner of the group is Big Ten Tournament champion Michigan, which will open the NCAAs against Big West champion UC San Diego in the first round of the South Region. The Tritons have won 15 in a row since losing at UC Riverside on Jan. 18. The winner of that game will face the winner of Texas A&M-Yale. Yale is in the tournament for the second year in a row after defending its Ivy League title. A year ago, the Bulldogs upset No. 4 Auburn in the first round.
The other quadrant in Denver is out of the East Region, with Big Ten Tournament runner-up Wisconsin getting a No. 3 seed and No. 14 seed Montana in the first round. The Grizzlies took down Northern Colorado in the Big Sky Conference championship. One of those two teams will face the winner of No. 6 BYU vs. No. 11 VCU.
Here are the matchups:
South Region
No. 5 Michigan (25-9) vs. No. 12 UC San Diego (30-4), 8 p.m.
No. 4 Texas A&M (22-10) vs. No. 13 Yale (22-7), 5:25 p.m.
East Region
No. 6 BYU (24-9) vs. No. 11 VCU (28-6), 2:05 p.m.
No. 3 Wisconsin (26-9) vs. No. 14 Montana (25-9), 11:30 a.m.
