Nashua native Rich Shrigley hasn’t danced on the basketball court in 32 years.

Thursday night, he’ll be reliving the dream through his son, Matt, who, along with the San Diego State University Aztecs, has been busting a move during March Madness.

The last time former Nashua High School star Rich Shrigley shuffled across the floor in NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament action was 1982.

His No. 8 Boston College Eagles reached the Elite Eight out of the Midwest Bracket, beating No. 9 University of San Francisco 70-66 and fellow Nashua High School star Farley Gates in the first round, upsetting No. 1 DePaul University 82-75 in the
second-round and slipping past No. 5 Kansas State 69-65 in the regional semifinal/Sweet 16.

The Eagles’ run would end in the Elite Eight against No. 6 University of Houston, better known as Phi Slama Jama.

The Cougars, led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, beat the Eagles 99-92 before losing to eventual champion University of North Carolina in the Final Four.

“That was an amazing run for us,” Shrigley said from his home in Carlsbad, Calif.

“We reached the Sweet 16 in 1981, so we had some experience, but to beat the No. 1 seed in our bracket was a big accomplishment.

“We faced some tough teams that year. San Francisco with Farley Gates, DePaul, Kansas State and then Olajuwon and Drexler.”

In 1981, the fifth-seeded Eagles’ Sweet 16 run went through the Mideast Bracket with wins over No. 12 Ball State University (first round, 93-90) and No. 4 Wake Forest University (second round, 67-64), and a regional semifinal loss to No. 9 St. Joseph’s University (42-41).

Now Shrigley is enjoying the view from the stands, as his son participates in the NCAA’s version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

Thursday (10:17 p.m., TBS) in Anaheim, Calif., Matt Shrigley and the fourth-seeded Aztecs (31-4 overall; 16-2 Mountain West) square off with Claremont’s Kaleb Tarczewski and top-seeded Arizona (32-4 overall; 15-3 PAC-12) in the West Region semifinals.

It’s the second time in four seasons that San Diego State has reached this stage of the tournament, but the first time Shigley, a redshirt freshman, has been there.

“I don’t think it’s all really sunk in yet,” Matt Shrigley said after a team workout Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t know if it will really sink in until I have a chance to look back on what we’ve accomplished, but I’m enjoying the moment, and I’m part of a great team of guys that don’t want this to end anytime soon.

“We are playing some good basketball together, and we have another big challenge Thursday that we have to face.”

When the Aztecs and Wildcats meet in the Honda Center, it will be the second time they’ve faced off this season. The first meeting, a 69-60 Arizona win on Nov. 14, saw Shrigley collect five points in 16 minutes. That was just his second collegiate game – which followed up a seven-point, 17-minute performance in a 77-41 season-opening win over University of California-Riverside six days earlier.

Through 35 games, including the tournament, Shrigley is sixth on the team in scoring average (5.4) and points scored (188), second in 3-pointers made (40), fourth in free throw percentage (.667) and fifth in blocked shots (12).

Through the current tournament run, he has averaged 15 minutes of play, scoring six points (two 3-pointers), pulling down five rebounds and recording one block in wins over No. 13 New Mexico State University (second round, 73-69 OT) and No. 12 North Dakota State University (third round, 63-44).

In the win over North Dakota, Shrigley watched senior guard Xavier Thames, the Mountain West Player of the Year, post the second-highest scoring game of his career with a game-high 30 points and a game-high five assists to lead the Aztecs. Junior Dwayne Polee II came off the bench to add 15 points and six rebounds to reach double figures for a career-best fourth straight game.

SDSU also put together an impressive defensive performance, limiting the nation’s top field-goal percentage team to just 31.9 percent from the floor, including 2-for-11 from beyond the arc. It was the 20th time this winter that the Aztecs held their opponent to less than 40 percent in field-goal percentage. San Diego State also owned a plus-11 advantage on the glass and committed just six turnovers.

That win kept a few Aztecs streaks alive, including a 120-game win streak when leading with five minutes to play, a 34-game win streak when owning a higher field-goal percentage than its opponent, a 25-game win streak when leading at halftime and a 24-game win streak when attempting more free throws.

As for a mark in which Shrigley has played a direct role: the Aztecs are 12-0 this season when he makes multiple 3-pointers in a game, as was the case in their tournament opener against New Mexico State.

On Thursday, SDSU will look to extend a 20-game winning streak in games played in California, the longest active run in the nation for any team since the beginning of the 2001-02 campaign. Keeping that streak alive to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in program history would mean knocking off a preseason Final Four favorite.

“It’s been 30-something games since we last played them,” Shrigley said of Arizona, which owns a 22-7 series advantage over SDSU all-time. “We’ve definitely improved since then. We’re just going to go out there and play the best we can as a team and see what happens this time around.”

For Rich Shrigley, this time around isn’t much different. Despite being in the stands, he’s just as anxious as any player or coach would be.

“It makes me think back to when I was there with BC,” he said. “I tell him to just enjoy the experience. As players, we get so involved in the preparation – games, film, practices, meetings – that you didn’t take it all in. They need to enjoy everything, every aspect of what’s going on. Enjoying the press conferences and all the extra things you have to do.

“So whenever we talk, I tell him to soak it all up. ‘Just enjoy the entire atmosphere and all that’s happening around you.’ ”

Almost the entire family is enjoying Matt’s tournament experience from the San Diego area.

His older sister, Samantha, is a senior at SDSU. His younger sister, Sarah, lives with mom Heidi and dad in Carlsbad, while his grandparents on dad’s side, Richard and Jan, also moved from Nashua to Southern California five years ago.

With their move west from the Gate City, the only family connections remaining in New England are Heidi’s parents, Bill and Mary Krim, and other relatives in Fryeburg, Maine.

Still, Matt remembers visiting Nashua as a 10-year-old and sitting courtside in the “Colligidome” for a Bishop Guertin High School basketball game. He has heard the stories of his father’s success donning Panthers purple under coaches Don “Ducky” Mead, Al Grenert and longtime assistant George Noucas.

He has heard the legendary story of Rick Pitino and Jim Boeheim visiting Nashua in hopes that Syracuse University would land the highly recruited basketball star, only to find out Rich’s uncle was North Carolina State University coach Norm Sloan, who was also recruiting Rich.

His dad stayed close to home, turning down those two offers and a few more to play for Tom Davis at The Heights in Chestnut Hill, Mass., where he started as a freshman and played in virtually every game during his four seasons on the court.

“Rumor has it he wasn’t a good shooter,” Matt said jokingly of his father, who was inducted into the Boston College Varsity Club Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989. “I’ve seen pictures of back then when he looked like a musclehead.”

During Rich’s collegiate career, the Eagles averaged 21 wins a season. BC went to the NIT in 1979-80, with Shrigley earning all-star accolades, followed by the two NCAA Tournament appearances. As a senior captain during the 1981-82 season, he scored 12 points in that first-round win over San Francisco, filling in for a foul-plagued John Bagley.

After finishing his senior season, Rich remained at BC and joined Doug Flutie on the football team the next fall as a graduate student, playing tight end for the Eagles’ first bowl-bound squad in 40 years.

Despite his collegiate success, which also included stints as an assistant coach at the University of Iowa and Virginia Tech University, Rich still looks back on his days in Nashua as a driving force in all he has accomplished.

“I was fortunate enough to play for Ducky Mead my first couple of years and then Coach Grenert, who brought a whole different style onto the court,” said Rich, who is president of La Costa Loans, specializing in real estate financing and house-flipping projects.

“I had the chance to play with talented guys like Mike Krueger and Jimmy Ford. I learned from watching Paul Dufour play. I had so much talent around me in high school. I learned a lot about how to succeed in athletics and life during those years.”

They are lessons he has passed on to his son in the roles of father and coach.

Rich has coached Matt and his current SDSU teammate Winston Shepard, among other Division I athletes – including Shabazz Muhammad of UCLA and Minnesota Timberwolves fame – in AAU basketball with the Dream Vision program out of San Diego.

Matt took the San Diego prep scene by storm, leading La Costa Canyon High School to a 35-3 record and a perfect 8-0 mark in league action during his senior season. He averaged 16.5 points as the Mavericks won the San Diego Section and Southern California Regional titles during that 2011-12 season. They recorded the best finish in school history as a California Interscholastic Federation Division II finalist.

During his senior season, in which he earned CIF San Diego Section Player of the Year, ESPN.com listed Matt as the ninth-best player in California, the 12th-best in the region and the 18th-best at the shooting guard position. Scout.com rated him as the 27th-best shooting guard nationally.

It was his junior season that saw him break out as a must-have recruit. He averaged 18.4 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.1 blocks, 1.8 assists and 1.6 steals in 2010-11 while helping his squad to a 29-5 record.

Courted by about half of the Pac-12, with strong attention paid by Oregon and Colorado, the 6-foot-6, 195-pound small forward/shooting guard was also getting interest from a familiar location on the East Coast – Boston College, of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The choice was simple. He’d follow in his father’s footsteps. No, not by attending BC, but by opting to stay close to home with SDSU.

Like father, like son – the Big Dance continues for the Shrigley family.