College basketball could not have scripted a more appropriate start to March with a Saturday that featured a top-10 matchup buzzer-beater, a Big Ten bubble possibly burst at the horn, and plenty of thrilling finishes to whet audiences’ appetites for Madness.
Of all the results on a day filled with nail-biters, however, perhaps the most interesting came courtesy of a 100-55 blowout at the expense of a six-win opponent. That was the outcome in UC San Diego’s rout of Cal State Fullerton, which also marked the Tritons’ 11th straight victory overall.
UC San Diego’s streak, tied with High Point for the longest in college basketball, has the program on the cusp of a regular-season Big West Conference championship. A split in the Tritons’ final week, with their home finale on Thursday against Long Beach State and a visit to UC Davis on Saturday, guarantees UCSD no worse than a share of the league title.
Two wins deliver an outright Big West crown to La Jolla—not bad for a program in just its fifth year of Division I membership. UCSD is poised to hold the No. 1 seed in its first-ever Big West Tournament, having previously been unable to participate due to NCAA rules restricting programs transitioning between divisions from the NCAA Tournament until completion of a probationary period.
The Tritons’ immediate success is impressive enough on its face, but there’s further context that makes this story unfolding in Southern California all the more remarkable.
UCSD began its move to Division I with positive momentum, having won three regular-season championships and four consecutive California Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament titles from 2017 through 2020. The program began finding success at the Division II level despite having operated more like a Division III athletic department not long prior.
Although UCSD moved from the non-scholarship NCAA Division III level in 2000, the school only began offering athletic scholarships in 2014 thanks to the efforts of alumni David Schink and his son, Skip. An athletic scholarship program made the university’s move to Division I possible.
Around the same time, UCSD basketball made another move that might have seemed small then but has since proven to be monumental: the promotion of longtime assistant Eric Olen to head coach in 2013.
Olen spent a decade as an assistant before replacing Chris Carlson. By Olen’s third season as head coach, UCSD reached the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first of four straight appearances—which would have been five if not for COVID-19 in 2020.
And, at 30-1, the 2019-20 Tritons might well have been national championship contenders in Division II. Instead, the program began its transition to college basketball’s highest level while navigating the challenges of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
UCSD took its lumps initially upon joining Division I, but by last season, the Tritons settled into their new home. By the end of the regular season, UCSD was arguably playing the best basketball of any team in the Big West, winning six of eight down the stretch, including a 92-88 overtime thriller against the conference’s longtime standard-bearer, UC Irvine.
The late February defeat of last season’s Big West regular-season champion, and the team the 2024-25 Tritons are vying to hold off in the final week, best showcased UCSD’s potential. When Bryce Pope hit a 3-pointer to force the extra frame, connecting on a runner just a few steps inside the midcourt line, it was apparent the Tritons would not be denied.
It was also apparent Pope was perhaps the best player in the Big West. And, after averaging more than 18 points per game for a second straight season, Pope opted for the path that so many breakout stars in mid-major conference programs follow in the current landscape: He transferred to a power-conference destination. In this case, that destination was Southern California.
The offseason departure of Pope just adds to the intrigue of UCSD’s story, however. Olen’s roster was not without established pieces coming into this season, with the versatile Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones having averaged 13.8 points and 5.8 rebounds per game in 2023-24.
But the Tritons lost their biggest piece in Pope and have actually been better than last season’s 21-win squad. In fact, UCSD has been better than last season’s national champion by some metrics—through March 1, the Tritons rank No. 35 overall in KenPom.com ratings, one spot ahead of two-time reigning Final Four winner UConn.
That KenPom ranking, along with an NET rank of 35, suggests UCSD may not even need to win its first-ever Big West Tournament to advance to the Tritons’ first NCAA Tournament. Behind the likely Big West Player of the Year Tait-Jones and the backcourt tandem of Hayden Gray and Tyler McGhie, UCSD has built a résumé very much worthy of at-large consideration.
Among current top 25-ranked teams, only No. 1 Auburn and Saint Mary’s have more than UCSD’s 26 total wins. The Tritons’ docket includes road wins over fellow potential at-large teams Utah State and UC Irvine, both ranked in the top 70 in KenPom.
What’s more, the win over UC Irvine at Bren Events Center by 18 points was one of 10 in UCSD’s current 11-game winning streak decided by a double-digit margin. The Tritons are not just beating opponents—they are crushing them.
Should that continue in Henderson, Nevada, at the Big West Tournament, UCSD’s at-large worthiness becomes irrelevant. The prospect of a power-conference team having its March Madness ended early by this program that was non-scholarship a little more than a decade ago and Division II a half-decade ago, however, becomes a distinct possibility.
