Seventh-seeded UCLA will face 10th-seeded UCF in an NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament East Region first-round game in Philadelphia Friday with senior center Tyler Bilodeau’s status depending on who you believe.
Bilodeau was listed as questionable but when coach Mick Cronin was asked Thursday how Bilodeau and guard Donovan Dent were, he replied, “They looked good today.”
Bilodeau suffered a mild right knee sprain in last Friday’s 88-84 victory upset of then-eighth ranked Michigan State in a Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal game when his knee buckled during a defensive play. He missed the next game, a 73-66 loss to then-18th-ranked Purdue Saturday.
Dent sustained a calf injury midway through the first half of the Purdue game and did not return.
Bilodeau is the Bruins’ leading scorer, averaging 17.6 points per game, while Dent is averaging 7.6 assists per game, fourth in the nation.
Dent was not listed on the availability report.
UCLA (23-11) enters the tournament with six victories in its last eight games. The Knights (21-11) have lost four of their last five games, including an 81-59 loss to Arizona in a Big 12 Conference tournament quarterfinal March 12.
The Bruins are the 28th overall seed in the 68-team field. UCF is the 38th overall seed.
UCLA guard Skyy Clark called the Knights “super athletic.”
“They have a lot of scorers,” Clark said. “They’ve got some really good guard play. They have a super-tall center, and they’re super aggressive. They have a really good point guard as well, so we have to lock in on really staying in front of the ball.”
UCF has four players scoring in double figures — guard Riley Kugel (14.4), point guard Themus Fulks (14.1), forward Jordan Burks (13.0) and forward Janichael Stillwell (11.7).
Fulks is 11th in the nation in assists, averaging 6.7 per game.
The “super-tall center” is John Bol, who is listed at 7-foot-2 and is averaging 6.0 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
Oddsmakers have made the Bruins a 5 1/2-point favorite. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives UCLA a 72.2% chance of winning, the Knights a 27.8% chance.
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, seventh seeds have an 97-62 record against 10th seeds in the first round, with the 2021 West Region match-up between seventh-seed Oregon and 10th-seed Virginia Commonwealth considered a no contest due to COVID-19 protocols with Virginia Commonwealth.
This is the second consecutive season and fifth in the last six the Bruins will be playing in the tournament. They reached the second round in 2025.
UCF will be making its sixth tournament appearance since joining Division I in the 1984-85 season and first since 2019, when as the ninth seed in the East Region, defeated eighth-seeded Virginia Commonwealth, 73-58, for its lone tournament victory, then lost to top-seeded Duke, 77-76.
Friday’s game will be the first meeting between the two teams.
The 4:25 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time game will be televised by TBS.
The UCLA-UCF winner will face the winner of Friday’s game between second-seeded Connecticut (29-5) and 15th-seed Furman (22-12) in a second-round game on Sunday.