UCLA Draws 7-Seed; Will Face Michigan St.
(CBS) -- The UCLA Bruins are back in the NCAA tournament and will face the 10th seeded Michigan State Spartans in Tampa on Thursday.
The winner of the #7 UCLA- #10 MSU game will face the winner of the #2 Florida-#15 Santa Barbara game.
The only UCLA players with NCAA tourney experience are juniors Malcolm Lee and Jerime Anderson.
They both played sparingly in 2009, beating Virginia Commonwealth in the opener and losing to Villanova in the second round. Neither scored, with each playing less than 19 minutes combined in the two games.
The Spartans, meanwhile, reached the Final Four last season, with most of its team still intact.
"Those guys have been there, done that, won in the tournament, and that's definitely an advantage for them," Howland said.
UCLA is three years removed from its run of three consecutive Final Four appearances, having endured several departures to the NBA since then.
Last March, Howland was on the recruiting trail while the NCAA tournament was going on.
"We expected to get back in the tournament," he said.
The senior-less Bruins finished second in the Pac-10, while the Spartans (19-14) ended in a four-way tie for fourth in the Big Ten.
"We know they're a good team. They've got experience," Tyler Honeycutt said.
UCLA's victories included wins over BYU, St. John's, and Arizona, one of the four Pac-10 teams that got into the NCAA tournament.
The Bruins lost at Kansas by one point; the Jayhawks are the top seed in the Southwest Region.
The Spartans beat Washington of the Pac-10 and Wisconsin, while their losses included games against Connecticut, Duke, Syracuse and Texas.
"Michigan State is a better team than a 10-seed," Lee said.
"They got a lot of talent. We can't take them lightly. We can't take any teams for granted."
The winner will face either Florida or UC Santa Barbara.
Ohio State, Kansas, Pittsburgh and defending champion Duke are the top seeds in an expanded version of March Madness that will include 68 teams.
USC is also in the tournament, barely.
The Trojans will face Virginia Commonwealth in the play-in game on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. If the Trojans can win, they will enter as an 11 seed and face Georgetown.
