The coolest nickname in college basketball might belong to the UC Irvine Anteaters. That alone is enough of a reason to get your hands on last-minute UC Irvine basketball tickets. Of course, the Anteaters are more than just a cool nickname. They are also one of the top up-and-coming programs in the college basketball landscape. The Anteaters have come on strong in recent years and have a chance to be the next great mid-major. In other words, the days in which it’s easy to get cheap UC Irvine basketball tickets are almost over.

Into the Deep

The rise of UC Irvine basketball to prominence is nothing short of meteoric. During the 1996-97 season, the Anteaters were a bad 1-25. It was a low point for a program that knows a lot about dark days. However, fresh off a Division II national championship with Cal State Bakersfield, Pat Douglass took over the Anteaters and completely rebuilt them. Douglass led UC Irvine to a pair of Big West regular-season championships in 2001 and 2002, completing a swift and improbable turnaround.

Rise of the Anteaters

Douglass continued to make UC Irvine a respectable program until 2010 when he passed the torch to Russell Turner. In his first job as a head coach, Turner took the torch and ran with it. In 2014, he led UC Irvine to another Big West regular-season title, and in 2015, he took the Anteaters to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. Under Turner, UC Irvine won five Big West regular-season titles in seven years. That stretch included the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win, a first-round upset of Kansas State in 2019 to cap off a 31-win season and leave no doubt that UC Irvine is a mid-major to watch closely in the years to come.