No. 1 UC Irvine Men’s Basketball (29-6, 17-3) took down Northern Colorado (25-10, 15-3) 82-72 in the opening game of the Anteaters’ National Invitation Tournament (NIT) run at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif. on March 19. Irvine faced adversity from the Bears and the officials all night, but eventually came out on top.
Irvine earned a No. 1 seed in the NIT after a second-place finish in both the Big West regular season and tournament standings. Northern Colorado won the Big Sky regular season but fell to Montana in college basketball’s most apt-named conference tournament: Starch Madness.
Both teams missed layups to begin the game, with two coming from UNCO and one from Irvine. Irvine got two poor-quality shots to start their offensive efforts, one being an out-of-control layup from redshirt senior forward Devin Tillis and one from a late shot clock three by graduate guard Justin Hohn.
A pair of freethrows from junior forward Brock Wisne began the scoring for Northern Colorado, but Hohn got his redemption with a similar three-point attempt and a make.
A Tillis three led to two blocks and a defensive stop on the other end by senior center Bent Leuchten, bringing the Bren to life. Another stop by Irvine half a minute later made UNCO 0-7 on their first seven field goal attempts before a timeout stopped play for the first time of the night.
Northern Colorado got two more freethrows to go after that timeout, but the deuce was quickly answered as Tillis backed down the defense and got an easy turnaround floater. After the bucket, UNCO finally got their first field goal with a jumper by junior guard Langston Reynolds.
UCI punched back with their first three of the night, hit by redshirt freshman guard Jurian Dixon. The offense started to kick into gear for both teams and UNCO freshman center Egan Shields hit an easy layup to bring the score to 13-8, UCI.
Northern Colorado junior guard Marcell McCreary cut the lead to one with two tough buckets, including a three. After a timeout, UNCO got a stop on Irvine redshirt freshman guard Ben Egbo and forced a turnover on the Arizona native. Then, Wisne got a post-isolation chance on Leuchten and backed the seven-footer down for two.
Leuchten — one of the better defensive heavyset seven-footers in the country — did not back down, recording his third block of the night on the ‘Eaters’ next defensive possession.
The fan-favorite German had the crowd on their feet with a huge two-handed dunk out of a baseline inbounds play — after the crowd berated the officials for what they thought should have been two freethrows for sophomore guard Myles Che. Despite UNCO staying in the game with a consistent diet of layups, Leuchten held steady and got an easy finish at the rim.
After another easy finish by Northern Colorado, the Anteaters found themselves down one in potentially the last game of their season. Despite the high stakes, UC Irvine head coach Russell Turner went deep into his bench, playing freshman guard Berk Can Akin and redshirt sophomore forward/center Elijah Chol in the first half.
Chol gave up a layup, but got a solid contest on McCreary and finished a layup courtesy of a Tillis assist for his first career postseason points. He then tied the game back up for UC Irvine with a putback layup before getting subbed out for Leuchten.
UC Irvine was on upset watch heading into the second half, down 41-37.The struggles continued entering the second half, giving up a second-chance bucket and turning the ball over in the first minute of the period.
Finally, freshman guard Torian Lee hit a big three for Irvine, Chol got another big block and Dixon hit another three to cut the Bear lead to three with just under 14 minutes to go in the half. Tillis got his defender in the air with a pump fake for an easy floater, and suddenly The Bren was alive.
Reynolds quieted the Irvine crowd with a big catch-and-shoot triple to keep the lead for UNCO at four. Leuchten and Reynolds traded floaters before a 30-foot bomb from Hohn lit up the fans once again.
Leuchten’s fifth field goal tied the game at 60 with a tip-in. After McCreary turned his ankle and had to be removed from the game, Irvine seized the momentum and got another lay-in to go from Leuchten, giving UCI its first lead of the half.
Che — who had been struggling through the Anteaters’ first pair of postseason games — hit his own massive three, a stepback right-to-left beauty from the top of the key.
Turner could be heard audibly yelling at Che on the next possession to run the offense through Tillis. Turner’s starting point guard responded, giving the ball to Irvine’s leading scorer, who then found Leuchten deep in the post for another easy two.
Irvine never looked back. On the back of a rotation that went 11 deep on Wednesday, they finished off Northern Colorado 82-72.
At the postgame press conference, Turner spoke about the decision to run a deeper rotation in an elimination game.
“Every man on our roster is important and can have an impact and be the difference maker. Tonight, it felt like [Chol] might have been the difference maker,” Turner said at the presser. “We’ve been a growth program here, we’ve committed to that with guys who commit back to us and to that process.”
Irvine is known for not playing heliocentric basketball, generally relying on a multitude of shooters, ball handlers, defenders and rebounders every night.
“We’re not a superstar program, but we have superstars like these two,” Turner said while pointing at Leuchten and Tillis, who accompanied him at the press conference. “These two guys are superstars in this program for what we’ve accomplished in the time they’ve been here.”
Turner also spoke about Tillis’ impact on the game, and his program after four years with UC Irvine. Tillis matched his career high with 24 points on the night — his highest since 2023. In doing so, the Los Angeles native eclipsed 1,000 career collegiate points.
“It’s hard to talk about [Tillis’] impact, and if I try to talk about it much I’ll get choked up,” Turner said. “It’s not [just] about tonight, but he’s the type of basketball brain and individual with character that teams and programs like ours are identified with … [Tillis] is one of the more underrated guys that we’ve had, but tonight nobody could underrate that performance.”
Irvine will continue their season against Jacksonville State at the Bren Events Center at 6 p.m. on March 23.
Jacob Ramos is a 2024-2025 Managing Editor. He can be reached at jacobtr@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor