Big West champion UC San Diego will travel to Fort Worth, Texas on Friday to play TCU in the first round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

TCU had a 29-5 record this season and is ranked 14th nationally by The Associated Press. But the Horned Frogs lost 62-53 to 15th-ranked West Virginia in the finals of the Big 12 Tournament on March 8, and fell to a No. 3 seed when brackets were unveiled Sunday.

UC San Diego (24-8) is the No. 14 seed in the South Region.

The Tritons finished the season on a six-game winning streak, culminating with Saturday afternoon’s 60-48 victory over Hawaii, which gave UCSD its second straight Big West Tournament title. Tritons’ guard Makayla Rose was named the Most Valuable Player of the Big West Tournament, with forward Eric Condron also named to the all-tournament team.

Condron was also part of last year’s team that made the tournament, losing the Southern in the First Four.

“Being able to win last year and this year with two different teams is incredible,” said Condron. “We play how we play every game, so we’ll bring that mentality to this game and keep our consistency up.”

“If you are around UC San Diego, you very much understand that this place is about the quest for excellence,” said Tritons’ head coach Heidi VanDerveer. “It’s something that is very special. And the young women on our team really embrace that. It’s a great challenge for them.

“I think we have great maturity. I think we are polished. We have great leadership from the five who play the majority of the minutes. They are focused, driven and resilient. They just want to keep playing with each other.

“A lot of teams like playing with each other. But this team really plays for each other.”

Aztecs in WBIT

San Diego State, which won the Mountain West regular-season title but lost in the second round of the conference tournament, was selected to play in the 32-team Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.

The 24-5 Aztecs will host a first-round game against UC Irvine on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the University of San Diego’s Jenny Craig Pavilion. The Aztecs couldn’t play at Viejas Arena because the arena is hosting the opening round of the NCAA men’s tournament.

The Aztecs are a fourth seed in the WBIT.

“This gives us another opportunity to play some new opponents and erase the sour taste in our mouths of losing in the conference tournament,” said San Diego State coach Stacie Terry-Hutson.

PLNU in finals

After the Point Loma Nazarene University men won their opening game in the NCAA Division II West Regionals Friday, Sea Lions’ head coach Justin Downer said his team was looking “to take the next step from being a team of regional prominence to one of national prominence.”

Third-seeded PLNU (27-5) has that opportunity Monday night in Hayward when it plays undefeated and top-seeded Cal State East Bay (32-0) in the West Regional championship game. The winner heads to the Division II Elite Eight.

PLNU. the champions of the PacWest Conference, defeated Northwest Nazarene (76-61) and Saint Martin’s (66-57) in the first two rounds of the West Regionals.

Forward Andrew Nagy posted 43 points, 15 rebounds and two blocked shots for PLNU in the first two games. Guard Caden Harris had 31 points, 10 rebounds, seven steals and three assists.

In the semifinal win, PLNU had a 13-0 run over four minutes in the middle of the first and an 11-0 run to a 61-47 lead late in the second half.

Second in State

San Joaquin Delta rallied steadily over the final three quarters Sunday afternoon to defeat MiraCosta College 76-71 in the California Community College Athletic Association’s state championship game in Visalia.

MiraCosta scored the game’s first seven points and led 29-11 after the first quarter. But San Joaquin Delta cut the deficit to 13 at intermission and pulled to within seven at 59-52 after three quarters. After MiraCosta widened the lead to 63-52, the Pioneers ran off 10 straight points to pull within one and finally took the lead at 69-66 on a three-point basket with 2:55 to play.

Point guard Kyla Palpallatoc (Morse High School) led MiraCosta with 21 points. She went 5-for-11 on three-point attempts and scored 11 points during the Spartans’ 29-point first quarter. Point guard Anayla Anderson, the Player of the Year in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference, scored 19 points with five rebounds and 10 assists. Kiya Waters had nine points and 13 rebounds. Melia Hinojos had nine points on 3-of-7 three-point shooting.