Minnesota Gopher Basketball - UCLA Game At A Glance

GN already covered some of this in his post Selection Sunday story, but I wanted to fill in some of the details about Friday's game, links to ticket info, etc.

Game Essentials

Date: Friday, March 22

Time: 8:57pm CST

Location: Frank Erwin Events Center - Austin, Texas

TV: truTV (Tim Brando, Mike Gminski, Otis Livingston)

Opponent SB Nation blog: Bruins Nation

Ticket info (all times CST): GopherSports NCAA ticket sales page. Tickets for the NCAA tournament are on sale now to men's basketball season ticket holders only. Tickets are on sale to season ticket holders by their donor level. Please see the chart below to identify the correct call in time. Tickets will be available for purchase over the phone at 612-624-8080 (Option 2), as well as in person at Mariucci Arena. If tickets sell out, season ticket holders will be notified via email.

For student season ticket holders: Student season ticket holders are eligible to purchase one ticket by ordering over the phone or in person at Mariucci arena. Tickets will be available from 9:00am until 12:00pm and they will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis so it is important to call at the beginning of the allotted time frame. Students will be notified via email if the tickets sell out. Students must have a vaild U of M Student ID to pick up their tickets.

UCLA Essentials

Head Coach: Ben Howland (10th season)

2012-2013 Record: 25-9 (13-5)

Season Notes: Won Pac-12 regular season title. Lost in the Pac-12 tournament finals to Oregon.

Common Opponents: None (ED NOTE: I'm an idiot.) Stanford and USC. Minnesota defeated both Stanford (66-63 @ neutral) and USC (71-57 @ USC) once. UCLA defeated Stanford twice (68-60 @ home and 88-80 @ Stanford) but lost to USC (75-71 @ home) in overtime.

Minnesota-UCLA Notes

- This will be the 7th meeting between the two teams. The last time we faced the Bruins was 1997, when the Gophers beat UCLA in the Elite Eight.

- As is famously noted, legendary coach John Wooden took the UCLA job after a job offer call from Minnesota was delayed by a snowstorm.

- This is Minnesota's ninth official NCAA Tournament berth (13th if you count the vacated Clem berths) and the third trip under Tubby Smith.

- This is the 11 billionth NCAA trip for UCLA, but only the first since 2010. It is the 7th NCAA berth for the Bruins under Ben Howland.

South Regional Bracket

via nbccollegebasketballtalk.files.wordpress.com

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