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UC Irvine receives NIT berth, will play at Utah

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The UC Irvine men’s basketball team is headed to the NIT.

The Anteaters, who won the Big West Conference regular-season title before losing to eventual champion Long Beach State in a Big West Tournament semifinal, will be back on the court when they square off with Utah on Tuesday at 8 p.m. PT in Salt Lake City (ESPN2). It was the final matchup revealed during the live selection show on ESPN2.

This is the eighth appearance in the NIT for UCI (24-9), which has gone 2-7 in its previous trips. The Anteaters were blown out in an NIT first-round game at Oregon last season.

The Big West has long been viewed as a one-bid NCAA Tournament conference, so the Anteaters knew they were likely bound for another postseason event once they lost to LBSU and missed out on the automatic berth given to the Big West Tournament champion. The NIT this year stopped granting automatic spots to regular-season conference champions who were left out of the NCAA Tournament, but UCI still received a spot.

The Utes (19-14) were viewed as an NCAA Tournament bubble team until recently, when Utah lost a game at Oregon State that severely damaged their hopes of returning to the NCAAs without winning the Pac-12 Tournament. Utah beat Arizona State in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament before losing to Colorado in the quarterfinals.

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The winner of the UCI-Utah game will face either Iowa State (18-14) or Kansas State (19-14) in a second-round game next weekend.

All first-round games in the 32-team NIT are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, with the second round to be played Saturday and Sunday. Quarterfinals will be held March 26 and 27 with four teams advancing to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for the semifinals on Tuesday, April 2. The NIT will conclude with the championship game on Thursday, April 4.

Seton Hall, Indiana State, Villanova and Wake Forest are the four No. 1 seeds. For the third straight season, the NIT seeded only the top half of the field. The 16 unseeded teams, including UCI, were placed into the bracket by the NIT Committee as close to their area of natural interest as possible.

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