After years of waiting, college basketball fans will soon have the opportunity to play as one of their favorite NCAA teams in a video game once again.
As we wrote in September, the NBA 2K franchise (and not EA Sports College Basketball) was expected to trial college basketball as downloadable content this year before March Madness. Then, they reportedly plan to make a deeper plunge into the collegiate efforts next season.
For now, while approximately 100 teams are eventually projected, they will begin with just 16 programs. The following schools are available across MyTEAM and MyCAREER, which means you can’t quite play as these teams in the regular Play Now mode:
- UCLA
- Duke
- Arizona
- Kansas
- Texas
- Michigan
- Michigan State
- Louisville
- Purdue
- Kentucky
- Florida
- UNC
- Baylor
- Houston
- Ohio State
- UConn
This includes both men’s and women’s college basketball, so men’s players like Cameron Boozer and women’s players like Lauren Betts are available.
Here is more from Zak Armitage, the SVP and GM of 2K Sports:
“2K is building the definitive basketball universe, uniting the NBA, WNBA, and soon the collegiate ranks under one banner. Authentically representing the most elite levels of the sport is an ambitious undertaking and one that we will continue to scale over time, beginning with our foundational college experience next year.”
The content is officially available starting Friday, February 20, across multiple gaming platforms.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: ‘NBA 2K’ set to add NCAA players, changing sports video game landscape