The Utah State Aggies’ opponent in the first round of the NCAA Tournament has been announced.
The Aggies, the 10 seed in the Midwest region, will face the 7 seed UCLA Bruins on Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky, it was announced during Sunday’s bracket reveal show on CBS.
Tipoff time will be announced later Sunday evening.
Utah State enters the Big Dance with a 26-7 record on the season. The Aggies got off to a 10-0 start under first-year head coach Jerrod Calhoun and were 24-4 before going 2-3 in their final five games, including a loss in the semifinals of the Mountain West Conference tournament to eventual champion Colorado State.
This marks the third consecutive year Utah State has gone dancing — famously all with different head coaches — and its fifth appearance in the last seven years (it would have been six had the 2020 tournament not been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
For as successful as the Aggies have been in getting to the tournament in recent history (this is their 14th appearance in the last 27 years), they haven’t had great success once they’ve gotten there, as they’ve only advanced to the second round twice in that span.
Last year was one of those times, as 8 seed Utah State beat 9 seed TCU before falling to 1 seed Purdue in the second round, with 2001 being the other.
The Aggies will try to make it two years in a row against a UCLA team that has a 22-10 record, including a 13-7 mark in its first season in the Big Ten Conference, where it finished in sixth place and lost to Wisconsin in the conference tournament quarterfinals.
The winner of the Utah State-UCLA game will face the winner of the matchup between 2 seed Tennessee and 15 seed Wofford Thursday in Lexington.