Northridge, CA – The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team (7-18, 2-9) earned a crucial win Wednesday night at CSUN (6-20, 3-9), defeating the home side 69-62 to get even in the loss column and move within a half game of the Matadors for the No. 8-seed in the Big West Tournament.
"Our guys have been really great. They're practicing hard, they're pulling for each other, they're really doing the right things every day," Interim Head Coach Justin Bell said. "I couldn't ask more of them."
The Highlanders' big three of sophomore Dikymbe Martin (18 points) and seniors Chance Murray (14) and Alex Larsson (12) led the way, as both Martin and Larsson helped set a new conference season-high for bench points (44).
"I didn't want our guys going into this one thinking it's a must-win when we've got five games left," Interim Head Coach Justin Bell said. "Every game for us is a must-win. We want to take every game seriously."
KEY RUNS
Coming out of the halftime break trailing 30-28, UCR fell behind by its largest deficit of the night, 42-33, at the 13:52 mark of the second half.
From there, the Highlanders would get hot, embarking on a 29-6 run which saw them hit 4-of-7 from three-point range. Defensively, the visitors held CSUN to just 38.7 percent (12-31 FG) overall and 27.3 percent (3-11 3FG) from deep in the second half.
UC Riverside went on to take its largest lead, 62-48, on a Martin jumper with 2:15 to go.
GAME NOTES
A back-and-forth opening half resulted in 13 lead changes over the first 20 minutes of the game. It was a much different story down the stretch however, as Martin's triple which put UCR up 43-42 midway through the second half provided the only other lead change of the night.
Guard Chance Murray finished with 14 points – knocking down 3-of-5 (.600) from three-point range – and set a new career-high with 10 rebounds. Also tallying 5 assists, Murray nabbed his second career double-double less than three weeks after notching his first.
Martin (6-11 FG) and Larsson (5-7 FG) combined to score 30 of the Highlanders' 44 bench points, a mark which fell just two points shy of UCR's season-high
set against UC Merced on Dec. 22. The Matadors meanwhile finished with just 2 bench points.
"[Martin] is a really good player. His ability to score the ball has helped us a ton," Bell said. "Having him and [Larsson] back is really big."
While he didn't score much (5 points), junior guard Koh Flippin made an impact on both ends, hitting season-highs in both steals (4) and assists (4).
Junior Menno Dijkstra was another factor off the bench, scoring all 8 of his points in the first half while pulling down 7 rebounds in 25 minutes.
The Highlanders were also efficient from beyond the arc, knocking down 8-of-20 (.400). Over their last five games, they have made 8 three-pointers four times, after doing so just twice in their first 20 games.
UC Riverside will return home this Saturday looking for its third win in four games as it faces Hawaii at 7:30 p.m. on Fox Sports Prime Ticket.
