The 2025–26 UC San Diego Tritons men's basketball team represented University of California, San Diego in the 2025–26 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The Tritons were led by 1st-year head coach Clint Allard and played their home games at LionTree Arena in La Jolla, California as members of the Big West Conference. This was the program's second season eligible for NCAA postseason play after completing its four-year transition to Division I in the 2024–25 season.

Previous season The Tritons were in their first year of NCAA Division I postseason eligibility. They finished the 2024–25 season 30–5, 18–2 in Big West play to win the regular season championship. They defeated UC Santa Barbara in the semifinals of the Big West Tournament and won over UC Irvine to win the Big West championship and clinch the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. It marked UC San Diego's first NCAA D1 Tournament appearance. They were seeded as the No.12 seed in the South region, where they fell short to No.5 seed Michigan 65-68 in the first round.

The Big West named Eric Olen as the conference’s coach of the year for the second time in a row. Senior Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones was selected on the All-Big West First Team alongside senior Tyler McGhie. Tait-Jones was also named Big West Player of the Year. Senior Hayden Gray was named Best Defensive Player as well as part of the All-Big West Second Team. Junior Chris Howell was named Best Hustle Player and redshirt junior Justin Rochelin was named Best Sixth Player.

Offseason

Coaching Changes Following the 2024-25 season, head coach Eric Olen left the Tritons to take the head coaching position at New Mexico. Olen was part of the Tritons coaching staff since the 2004-05 season after graduating from Spring Hill College, and after spending 9 seasons as an assistant coach, got promoted to the head coaching position in the 2013-14 season. Throughout his 12 seasons serving as head coach, Olen compiled a record of 240-119, with a 148-60 record in conference play, and has led the team to three CCAA regular season titles, four CCAA tournament titles with four NCAA DII tournament appearances. He has also guided the Tritons transitioning to NCAA DI and led the team to gaining their first ever NCAA D1 tournament appearance in their first year of postseason eligibility, seizing both the regular season and conference tournament titles. Olen has been named Big West Coach of the Year twice and NABC Pacific District Coach of the Year once. The coaching change announcement was made on March 30, 2025.

The same day, associate head coach Clint Allard was promoted as the Tritons new head coach. Allard played at UC San Diego from 2004-08 as a four-year starter and three-time team captain. Throughout UC San Diego's Division II era, Allard ranks first in steals made with a total of 130, and ranks in the top ten for points, field goals made, three pointers made, three-pointer field goal percentage, rebounds and assists. After graduation, Allard has spent the last 11 seasons as associate head coach under Olen, where he became the main architect for the team's defense. Notably, the Tritons led the nation in turnover margin (+7.2) and steals (345), and has the lowest turnovers per game (8.7) last season.

On April 4, it was announced that assistant coaches Tom Tankelewicz, Sam Stapleton and Mikey Howell would follow Olen to New Mexico as part of his new coaching staff.

In early June, UC San Diego officially announced the addition of its coaching staff with the hiring of four new assistant coaches: Skye Ettin, Rich Shayewitz, Daniel Eberhardt and Denzel Brito. Ettin most recently worked as an assistant coach for UC Santa Barbara after six years as part of the Princeton coaching staff and helped the Tigers with a Sweet Sixteen appearance. Shayewitz joined from Sonoma State where he was head coach, while Eberhardt, most recently working at Loyola Marymount also brings head coaching experience from Holy Names. Brito came to UC San Diego from George Washington with overseas playing experience.

Departures A total of ten players from the 2024-25 roster left UC San Diego, including four graduates and six outgoing transfers. Chris Howell and Milos Vicentic followed Olen to New Mexico, while Justin Rochelin left to join the Pacific Tigers. Starting forward Nordin Kapic transferred to South Carolina, Camden McCormick went to Tampa and Quin Patterson transferred to Idaho State.

Hayden Gray and Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones signed deals to participate in the 2025 NBA Summer League, joining the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors respectively. Tyler McGhie signed a contract to play professionally for the Gipuzkoa Basket first team. In August 26, Tait-Jones signed a contract to play professionally for Valmiera Glass Via.

DeparturesNameNumberPos.HeightWeightYearHometown Reason for departure 0 G 6'3" 190 Junior San Diego, CA Transferred to Tampa Hayden Gray 3 G 6'4" 190 Senior San Diego, CA Graduated 5 G 6'5" 205 RS Junior Encino, CA Transferred to Pacific 8 G 6'6" 195 Junior San Diego, CA Transferred to New Mexico Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones 12 G/F 6'6" 200 Senior Wellington, New Zealand Graduated 12 G/F 6'5" 195 Senior Denton, TX Graduated 15 G/F 6'7" 205 Junior Snoqualmie, WA Transferred to Idaho State 24 F 6'8" 245 Junior Vienna, Austria Transferred to South Carolina 31 F 6'7" 220 Graduate Student Belgrade, Serbia Transferred to New Mexico 33 F 6'8" 213 Graduate Student Buenos Aires, Argentina Graduated

Incoming transfers UC San Diego added eight transfers to its lineup: Tyson Dunn from Buffalo, Emmanuel Prospere II from Missouri-St. Louis, Bol Dengdit from Portland, Leo Beath from Lynn, Tom Beattie from Hawai'i, Alex Chaikin from Lafayette, Trap Johnson from Montana State and Dimitrije Vukicevic from Washington State.

Incoming transfersNameNumberPos.HeightWeightYearHometownPrevious School 3 G 6'3" 190 Graduate Student Newmarket, ON Buffalo 5 G/F 6'5" 212 Graduate Student Miami, FL Missouri-St. Louis 7 F 6'11" 210 RS Junior Melbourne, Australia Portland 8 F 6'8" 215 RS Junior Malibu, CA Lynn 9 G 6'5" 195 Junior Auckland, New Zealand Hawai'i 10 G 6'5" 175 Sophomore Williamsburg, VA Lafayette 23 G 6'6" 200 RS Freshman Belton, TX Montana State 33 C 7'0" 245 RS Freshman Belgrade, Serbia Washington State

Recruits

Preseason Big West Conference Preseason Poll The Big West Conference released its preseason coaches' poll on October 16, 2025. The Tritons were predicted to finish fourth in the conference with 69 points.

+Big West Preseason Poll Place Team Points 1 98 (8) 2 93 (3) 3 76 4 UC San Diego 69 5 63 6 58 7 54 8 31 9 26 10 20 11 17

Roster

Schedule and results

!colspan=12 style=""| Exhibition

!colspan=12 style=""|Regular season

!colspan=9 style=""|

Sources:

Game summaries vs Cal State San Marcos (Exhibition)

vs La Verne

vs Houston Christian

at Fresno State

vs Idaho

Temple (ESPN Events Invitational Adventure Bracket quarterfinals)

Bradley (ESPN Events Invitational Adventure Bracket semifinals)

Towson (ESPN Events Invitational Adventure Bracket final)

at Nevada

at Long Beach State

Tulane (Jack Jones Classic)

at Loyola Marymount

vs San Diego

vs Stanton

at Cal Poly

vs Hawai'i

References