UConn men’s basketball earns 8-seed in NCAA Tournament, will play Oklahoma in First Round

The Huskies are dancing for a fifth-straight season.

The stage is set for the UConn men’s basketball team’s run at a three-peat, with the NCAA selection committee bestowing a No. 8 seed upon the Huskies — set to face No. 9 Oklahoma in their first-round matchup Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. The matchup will take place at 9:25 p.m. ET and be broadcast on TNT.

The Big East is well represented in this year’s March madness. The conference claimed five bids total, two more than last year.

St. John’s claimed one of four No. 2 seeds after winning the Big East championship. The Red Storm are in the West region with a first-round matchup against No. 15 Omaha. The committee gave Marquette a No. 7 seed, with the Golden Eagles set to take on No. 10 New Mexico on Friday. Creighton is slotted in at No. 9 in the South and will play No. 8 Louisville, and finally, Xavier slipped into the tournament as a first-four team. The Musketeers play Texas for a chance to enter the field of 64 as a No. 11 seed. Would Xavier win, it would play No. 3 Kentucky in the first round.

Oklahoma (20-13, 6-12 SEC) finished 13th in the SEC this year, taking down Georgia in the first round of the conference tournament before losing by one point to Kentucky in the second round.

Oklahoma and UConn have two similar opponents each team has played this season. Oklahoma beat Providence on Nov. 27 but did so by just two points, 79-77. UConn has beaten Providence twice this season, a three-point win Jan. 1 and a 12-point win March 1. In addition, both UConn and Oklahoma have played Texas this season. The Huskies beat Texas 76-65 on Dec. 8, doing so without Alex Karaban who missed that game with a concussion. Oklahoma and Texas have squared off twice in SEC play, with Texas winning first 77-73 on Jan. 15. Oklahoma got its revenge in its final game of conference play, knocking the Longhorns off 76-72 on March 8.

The Huskies have played Oklahoma four times in program history, holding just a 1-3 record against the Sooners. The two teams last played in 2003-04, meaning these rosters will see each other for the very first time come Friday.

Should the Huskies advance, UConn would likely play No. 1 seed Florida in the second round, assuming the Gators take care of 16-seed Norfolk State.

So how did UConn get here? Since the season began in October, the Huskies’ landing spot in March’s NCAA tournament picture has continued to fluctuate. Dan Hurley’s squad was originally ranked No. 3 in the AP’s top 25 poll prior to the season, but its infamous Maui Invitational meltdown put the team on the verge of being unranked.

The Huskies climbed back up as high as No. 9 around early January following an eight-game win streak, including a 4-0 start in Big East play, but it was a steady downfall from there. UConn fell out of the poll Feb. 10 and never returned, slogging through its 20-game Big East slate but never able to emerge from the shadow of the NCAA championship rosters from the past two seasons.

UConn fell short of a Big East championship — it beat Villanova in the quarterfinal round but lost in the semis to Creighton — but it now has a shot at both redemption and history.