UCI Beats Kansas State For First-Ever NCAA Tournament Win

IRVINE, CA — UC Irvine notched it's first-ever win in the NCAA men's basketball tournament. with a 70-64 victory over Kansas State.

Evan Leonard's back-to-back 3-point baskets started a run of 12 unanswered points that gave 13th-seeded UC Irvine the lead for good Friday en route to a 70-64 victory over fifth-seeded Kansas State, the Anteaters first victory in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Leonard concluded the run by making three free throws to give UC Irvine a 59-51 lead with six minutes, three seconds to play in the South Region game at San Jose.

UC Irvine would lead by at least five points until the Wildcats cut the lead to 63-61 with 3:15 left as Barry Brown Jr. sank a 3-point basket and Kamau Stokes made a jump shot.

The Anteaters regained a five-point lead on Max Hazzard's 3-point basket with 1:26 to play. Kansas State pulled back within two on Cartier Diarra's 3-point basket with 1:03 remaining, but the Wildcats never scored again.

Kansas State missed a chance to at least tie the score when UC Irvine guard Robert Cartwright missed a layup, the Wildcats grabbed the rebound, but Brown threw the ball out of bounds.

Leonard made two free throws with 16 seconds remaining, Brown missed a 3-point shot with seven seconds to play. Leonard came down with the rebound, was fouled and made two free throws for the game's final points.

Leonard and Hazzard each scored 19 points as UC Irvine extended its school-record winning streak to 17 games and improved to 31-5, increasing its school record for victories in a season.

Stokes had 18 for Kansas State (25-9).

It's only the second time UCI has qualified for the tournament. The Anteaters went into the game as underdogs, 13th seeds, but they turned heads Friday with their victory. They will play again Sunday against the winner of Friday afternoon's game between Wisconsin and Oregon, with a spot in the tournament's Sweet Sixteen on the line.

"We've been close to making it this far a few times, but we accept that it's hard to get here and that's one of the things that makes it so satisfying, not just for our players but for our fans and our community," UC Irvine coach Russell Turner said.

“We’re legit, man,” Turner told the Los Angeles Times. “We got 30 wins, and we did that against some good opponents. We’re not going to sneak up on anybody. But I don’t think we have to in order to compete.”

UC Irvine opened in 1965 and began competing on the Division I level in 1977.

UC Irvine's other NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament appearance was in 2015 when it was the 13th seed in the East Regional and lost to fourth-seeded Louisville, 57-55, in a game the Anteaters led in the final minute.

The Anteaters were a 4 1/2-point underdogs to the Wildcats (25-8). The ABC News-owned data prediction website FiveThirtyEight.com gave UC Irvine a 23 percent chance of winning. Among participants in ESPN's Tournament Challenge, 21.4 percent picked the Anteaters to win.

Former President Barack Obama is the highest-profile person to predict a UC Irvine victory.

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City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.