Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders

The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders play in front of a lively downtown crowd at the American Bank Center, bringing coastal Texas energy to the Southland Conference. A relatively young Division I program, the Islanders surged to national attention in the early 2020s behind a fast, aggressive style that produced back-to-back conference titles and the school's first NCAA Tournament win. It's a program on the rise, with a fanbase that has quickly embraced March relevance.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi began Division I basketball in 1999-2000 and joined the Southland Conference in 2006-07. The Islanders won their first Southland tournament title and NCAA berth in 2007, then broke through again with back-to-back regular-season and tournament championships in 2022 and 2023 under coach Steve Lutz — the 2023 run producing the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament victory.