NCAA Brackets Announced: Fullerton Plays, USC Stays

FULLERTON, CA — Tickets to the big March Madness dance were handed out this weekend, with a few Cinderellas and a few notable snubs. Cal State Fullerton earned the 61st seed in the tournament. NCAA Brackets reveal they will play in the East region, as the 15th seed and will play the No. 2 seed Purdue Boilermakers in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship on Friday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

USC will stay home, one of 36 teams not chosen Sunday for the at-large berth in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, despite their 23-11 record, second-place finish in the Pac-12 Conference and reaching the final of the conference tournament.

"Our team is very disappointed we did not get in the NC double-A tournament," coach Andy Enfield said. "If all that matters is the quality of your best win or two on your schedule ... then we should set the field in December after the out-of-conference (portion of the schedule) was complete.

"They basically discredited our entire league schedule, and no matter what we or some of the other teams in our league did during the Pac-12 or the conference tournament did not obviously matter. We're very disappointed. Our players deserved to be in the NCAA tournament."

Bruce Rasmussen, the director of athletics at Creighton University and the chair of the NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Committee, told reporters on a conference call that "Southern Cal had a nice year," but only had two victories over teams in the NCAA tournament field -- New Mexico State, which was seeded 47th in the 68-team tournament, along with Cal State Fullerton and the 61st spot.

"So when you look at Southern Cal's resume, (USC) had a lot of wins," Rasmussen said. "When we were trying to determine who should be in the tournament we had a lot of teams that were in that area. Southern Cal had a lot of discussion. They had a lot of intense discussion.

"But we look at how teams did against tournament-caliber teams, either teams in the tournament or teams we feel are tournament-caliber teams. And they had two wins against teams in the field."

UCLA coach Steve Alford said he was "very surprised" the Trojans failed to receive an invitation.

"I think it's unfortunate for our league," Alford said crosstown at Pauley Pavilion. "It is what you do throughout the entire year and most of our league teams were so much better in January and February than what they were in November and December because there was so much turnaround."

USC was among four teams receiving No. 1 seeds in the 32-team National Invitation Tournament, and will face UNC-Asheville (21-12) Tuesday at Galen Center in a first-round game.

The Bulldogs were an automatic qualifier for the NIT as a regular- season conference champion that failed to receive an invitation to the NCAA tournament. UNC-Asheville won the Big South Conference regular-season championship, but lost to fifth-seeded Liberty, 69-64, in a semifinal of the Big South Men's Basketball Championship March 2.

CSF Titans are led by junior guards Kyle Allman, Jr. and Khalil Ahmad. Allman was named to the All-Big West Conference first team, Ahmad was named to the second team and Rowe was an honorable mention honoree. Allman leads the squad in scoring at 19.4 points per game. Ahmad averages 15.3 points per game and Jackson Rowe chips in at 12.2 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.

"It is the first-ever matchup between CSF and Purdue programs and the game will tip-off at 9:40 a.m. PT/12:40 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast live on TruTV and on MarchMadness.com, according to Cal State Fullerton Athletics. CSF enters the NCAA Tournament with a 20-11 overall record and has won eight of its last 10 games.

The other two teams in the Titans' pod are the No. 7 seed Arkansas Razorbacks and the No. 10 Butler Bulldogs.

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Jackson Rowe #34 and Kyle Allman #0 of the Cal State Fullerton Titans and Chris Lewis #0 of the Harvard Crimson wait for a rebound at the Titan Gym in Fullerton, California.

Photo credit: by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images