Students at UC San Diego approved a referendum in May 2016 to elevate athletics from NCAA Division II to Division I. An invitation from the Big West Conference didn’t come until the following year, and the formal transition to Division I didn’t begin until 2020.
And it wasn’t until this year that the Tritons were full Division I eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
In some ways, though, its men’s basketball team — with a 30-4 record, the nation’s longest active win streak at 15, a NET metric one spot above blue-blood North Carolina, receiving votes in the Associated Press poll, a fashionable pick to upset Big Ten champion Michigan in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday in Denver — never left. You can take the program out of Division II, but you can’t take Division II out of the program.
The 5-out offense? Developed through years in Division II with limited size, athleticism and scholarships coupled with high ission standards.
The unorthodox matchup zone defense? Borrowed from Division II rival Cal Poly Pomona.
The staff? Eric Olen spent nine years as a Tritons assistant and seven as head coach at the Division II level, as did most of his staff.
The roster? There are six Division II transfers, including four starters and the first guy off the bench.
Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, the Big West Player of the Year and national leader in free-throw attempts, came from Hawaii-Hilo. Hayden Gray, the Big West Defensive Player of the Year and the national leader in steals, came from Azusa Pacific. Tyler McGhie, a first-team all-conference selection and one of the nation’s top 3-point marksmen, came from Southern Nazarene in Bethany, Okla.
“I just think we’re hungry, man,” Tait-Jones says. “We’ve got a chip on our shoulder. We’ve got something to prove. We work hard. We come out every night and just do what we do.”
Which is defy convention.
“I love Division II basketball,” UC Irvine coach Russell Turner said Saturday, after losing to the Tritons in the Big West Tournament final. “I was a Division III player. There are players who can play everywhere. All those players now have value. I respect Coach Olen. He’s done an outstanding job building on the identity he created there and extending it now into the Division I era.
“It’s really irable. There should be just real pride in the way that’s come together.”
Olen laughs when asked the origin story of a Division I roster full of Division II players.
“Our own guys were all Division II,” he says, referring to the first year of the transition to Division I after going 30-1 in their final year at Division II. “It wasn’t like we woke up and said, ‘Let’s go get a bunch of Division II guys.’ It was this ongoing process of trying to get good players that fit what we needed and who was available. In the transition, fewer people are interested because we can’t go to the postseason.”
They had a familiarity with the Division II game as coaches, then used the lessons from the first few years in Division I to figure out which types of players could make the jump.
“And,” Olen says, “we realized it was a pretty long list.”
Another plus: They had negligible NIL resources, but Division II players were more interested in a chance than a check.
Another: They had played a lot of basketball.
“The thing that I maybe didn’t even value correctly that really helps a lot of these guys at Division II make that transition is the experience level,” Olen says, “because you’re not just playing in all the games, you have a major role in the games. Ty, Niwa, Hayden were guys who were the best players on their teams, had the ball in their hands, were taking big shots, made big free throws, had to get stops late in games.
“Not all experience is created equal.”
The 6-foot-6 Tait-Jones grew up in New Zealand playing rugby and didn’t try basketball until he was 14. His only option out of high school was Hawaii-Hilo, where he started 62 games, played 1,925 minutes and scored 1,061 points in three seasons.
He entered the portal with two years of eligibility remaining because of the NCAA’s extra COVID season. UCSD was the only Division I school who actively pursued him, intrigued by his uncanny ability to draw and get to the line and less concerned that he didn’t make many 3s with a funky, one-handed shot.
McGhie, a 6-foot-5 guard with narrow shoulders from Denton, Texas, did make 3s and did have Division I experience from a year at Western Carolina. After appearing in only 16 games and averaging 2.1 points, he transferred to Division II Southern Nazarene for two seasons.
His line: 53 starts, 1,757 minutes, 164 3s and 888 points.
He entered the portal but, as a second-time transfer, was ineligible to play in 2023-24, scaring off potential suitors. UCSD didn’t mind, knowing it was still a year away from Division I postseason eligibility. (And a month into the season, a legal challenge in West Virginia reversed the NCAA rule and McGhie played the final 23 games.)
“I was one of those guys who went Division I, but I didn’t realize how good Division II is until I was there,” says McGhie, who had 26 points with six 3s in a 75-73 win at Utah State in December. “It gets underappreciated, for real.”
Gray, a 6-4 guard, had no Division I offers coming out of Santa Fe Christian High School. He was set on attending Division II Central Washington before Azusa Pacific called. He started 57 games, played 1,606 minutes and scored 580 points in two seasons.
“I got to play a lot of minutes when I was a freshman and a sophomore,” Gray says. “I feel like I came here with a level of experience I probably wouldn’t have got if I went Division I. I probably wouldn’t have played as a freshman, probably would have been sitting on the bench.
“I also think it brings us a competitive edge, you know? I know Tyler and Niwa think they were good enough to play Division I. I definitely do. Being able to get this opportunity and play against Division I schools, we want to prove ourselves. I feel we’ve been overlooked, and that’s a key part of it.”
Nordin Kapic, their 6-8 starting center, came from Division II Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.
Maximo Milovich, the first guy off the bench, spent four years at Division II Biola in Los Angeles.
Milos Vicentic, out for the season with a foot injury, was a Division II All-American at McKendree University in Lebanon, Ill.
All six Division II transfers are 1,000-point career scorers and for 75% of the Tritons’ offense this season.
“These guys improve, they improve at different rates, they improve with different experiences,” says Olen, who lost leading scorer Bryce Pope to USC and starting forward Francis Nwaokorie to Loyola Chicago in the transfer portal last spring. “A lot of times you look at the physical attributes, and that’s sometimes an easier projection than skill and some of those other things. Now you get all those reps. They’re going to keep getting better. This is their fifth year in college. This version is not the version that is coming out of high school.
“And these guys are buying in, too. If they see the path that leads to their success and they’re really hungry for that success versus maybe they think they’ve made it, there’s a different sort of mindset.”
The downside, of course, is the world now knows their cheat code.
A few years ago, NBA scouts ventured to Golden Gymnasium at Point Loma Nazarene to see Division II Player of the Year Dalton Hommes. Jaylen Wells, a 6-8 wing with the Memphis Grizzlies, is the favorite for NBA Rookie of the Year; he spent his first two years in college at Division II Sonoma State before transferring to Washington State. Now, the UCSD Tritons go 30-4 and make the NCAA Tournament in their first year of eligibility.
“Division II,” Tait-Jones says in his Kiwi accent, “definitely are some dogs down there.”
