March Madness: LIU, seeded 16th, will play No. 1 seed Arizona on Friday in San Diego
LIU guard Greg Gordon. Credit: AP/Colin Hubbard
The Sharks are going dancing in San Diego.
Their date? The Arizona Wildcats.
No. 16 seed LIU will play No. 1 seed Arizona in a West region first-round matchup in the NCAA Tournament Friday.
The Sharks (24-10) qualified for the tournament by beating Mercyhurst, 79-70, in the Northeast Conference championship game. LIU’s backcourt of Malachi Davis and Greg Gordon each scored 24 points in the win.
For the entirety of the season, Davis (14.4) and Gordon (14.1) were second and third, respectively, in scoring for LIU. Swingman Jamal Fuller, a grad student, led the Sharks with 16.4 points per game.
LIU outscored opponents by three points per game (74.1-71.1), and shot 48.1% from the field.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Arizona (32-2) is a significant step up in weight class. The potent Wildcats outscored opponents by an average of 17.4 points per game. Freshman guard Brayden Burries led five players in double-figure scoring with 15.9 points per game.
Arizona made 50.2% of its shots from the field (1,039-for-2,069) from the field while holding opponents to 39.2% shooting.
The Wildcats won their final six regular-season contests, and then took all three games in the Big 12 Tournament. Their last loss occurred on Feb. 14, a 78-75 defeat to No. 16-ranked Texas Tech.
The 2025-26 season marks the eighth time in program history that the Sharks qualified for the NCAA Tournament. LIU advanced as far as the second round twice, in 2010-11 and 2011-12, under then-head coach Jim Ferry.
