Arizona will play Long Island with a 10:35 AM Mountain Standard Time/Pacific Daylight Time Tipoff on Friday at Viejas in San Diego. The game will be televised by TNT with Kevin Harlan calling play-by-play, Robbie Hummel and Stan Van Gundy as the analysts and Lauren Shehadi as the sideline reporter.
Following Arizona and Long Island in San Diego are ninth-seeded Utah State and eighth-seed Villanova, scheduled to begin at 1:10 PM MST, with the winners playing on Sunday. The Sunday schedule will be announced at the end of play on Friday night.
Five-seed St. John's against 12th-seeded Northern Iowa and 13th-seed California Baptist and four-seed Kansas in the East Regional pod are the night games in San Diego. Arizona against Long Island is the third tipoff on Friday. Kentucky plays Santa Clara with a 9:15 MST tip and Akron and Texas Tech tip at 9:40 MST before Arizona.
Friday is the second time in the past three seasons that Arizona has had an extremely early tip-off time locally. Arizona played Dayton in the 2024 NCAA Tournament second round with a 10:40 Mountain Daylight time tip-off time in Salt Lake City and 9:40 MST time.
It all starts Friday morning!!! pic.twitter.com/TUdif4fBxT
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaMBB) March 16, 2026
Comparing Arizona's 2025-26 tip-off times
The previous early tipoff times for Arizona during the 2025-26 season were at noon MST for home wins over Arizona State and West Virginia and in the Big XII Tournament quarterfinals on Friday in Kansas City. Tommy Lloyd discussed the mentality for Arizona about adapting to the schedule during the Big XII Tournament.
Arizona's tip-off time in the second round, if they beat Long Island, will likely be dictated by who wins between Utah State and Villanova. CBS might want a later game if Villanova wins to try and televiser it closer to prime time on the East Coast. Utah State will not build as much interest as Villanova.