UC Irvine is once again at the top of the mountain, after a panel of media members picked the Anteaters to finish first in a preseason poll for the 2015-16 Big West men’s basketball season.
UCI (21-13 last season) returns three starters from last season’s Big West Tournament championship team, which narrowly lost to Louisville in the opening round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
The most notable returnee is the big man Mamadou Ndiaye. The 7-foot-6 junior center averaged 10.5 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. Ndiaye, along with teammate, Luke Nelson, a guard who averaged 10.5 points per game, were named to the preseason All-Big West team.
Also joining the Anteaters duo on the all-conference team are UC Riverside’s Jaylen Bland and Taylor Johns, UC Santa Barabra’s Michael Bryson and Hawaii’s Aaron Valdes.
Irvine compiled 19 of the 23 first-place votes and a total of 198 points. In a distant second, UC Santa Barbara received 161 points and two first-place votes. Hawai‘i came in at third and Long Beach State, which lost all of their starters, was ranked fourth.