UC Riverside Head Men’s Basketball Coach Jim Wooldridge announced today that the Highlanders will face the USC Trojans in each of the next three seasons beginning with a November 17, 2009 meeting at USC’s Galen Center. During the 2010-11 season, the Trojans will make their first-ever trip to the UC Riverside Student Recreation Center (SRC), and in 2011-12 UCR will make a return visit to the Galen Center.
“Scheduling a series of games with a team like USC is part of the natural evolution of our program,” explained Wooldridge. “As we continue to mature and improve, we want to increase the strength of our non-conference schedule to better prepare us for Big West competition.
“What makes this series even more special is that not only do our fans get to enjoy watching us play one of the premier programs in the country three years in a row, but during the 2010-11 season, USC comes to UC Riverside’s campus to play in our own backyard at the SRC.”
The remainder of the 2009-10 UC Riverside men’s basketball schedule will be released later in July.
The Highlanders are coming off of a 17-13 season that marked the team’s first winning campaign as a Division I program and its best record since the 1996-97 season. Their fourth place finish in the Big West Conference was also the highest ever for the Highlanders. UC Riverside opponents averaged just 60.6 points per game on the year - the 27th lowest total in the nation.
UC Riverside graduated two seniors off of last year’s squad, but returns the likes of junior swing man
Kyle Austin – the first-ever All-Big West First-Team honoree in the program’s history – and guards
Sean Cunningham and
Javon Borum.
The Trojans posted their third consecutive 20-win season a year ago with a 22-13 mark and boast NCAA tournament appearances during two of the last three campaigns.
The Highlanders and Trojans faced off against one another on three previous occasions with USC winning all three, most recently in a 70-57 win on December 29, 2007.