University of California, Riverside
Cal Poly
Men's Hoops Opens Big West Competition In Record Fashion With 34-Point Win Over Cal Poly
1/2/2009 5:33:30 PM | Men's Basketball
(Riverside, CA) – A season of firsts for the UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team added a few more to the ledger Friday evening in the team's 91-57 win over Cal Poly to open Big West Conference play. Leading by four at the half, 42-38, the Highlanders turned up the defensive pressure holding the Mustangs to 15.4 percent shooting from the field after the break.
UCR didn't let up on the offensive end either nailing 61.8 percent of their shots in the second period and outscoring Cal Poly 49-19 over the final 20 minutes of play. The Mustangs didn't make their first field goal of the second half until the 12:17 mark. UCR countered with a Javon Borum three pointer to make the score 59-42 and the Highlanders had all the points they would need for the night.
The 34-point margin of victory is the largest such margin ever for the Highlanders in a conference game and came just days after UCR posted back-to-back offensive efforts of 46-points each in road losses to Hawai'i and Denver.
Kyle Austin led four Highlanders in double figures scoring 24 points while Javon Borum added 19. Konner Veteto and Aaron Scott just missed recording double-doubles with 15 points and nine boards and 11 points and eight rebounds respectively.
The Highlanders host UC Santa Barbara on Sunday at the Student Recreation Center at 2 pm. UCR will look to go 2-0 in Big West competition for the first time in the team's history against a Gauchos squad that dropped a 12-point decision to Long Beach State in their conference opener on Friday.
NOTES
The conference opening victory is just the second in UCR's eight-year Division I history.
The win runs the Highlanders consecutive home winning streak to seven games. To find a UCR home streak longer than that, one must go back to the mid 1990s when UCR won 30 straight at home over the span of four seasons from 1993-1995.
The 91 points is the most the Highlanders have scored since a 115-111 loss to Puget Sound on December 21, 2005. It is the most points they have recorded in a win since a 102-60 defeat of Cascade College on December 4, 2004.
UCR has eight wins on the season after picking up just nine wins a year ago. The team needs just four more wins to set the school mark for Division I wins in a season set by the 2003-04 squad.
Kyle Austin led the Highlanders in scoring for the fifth consecutive game and also recorded his fifth straight game of scoring 10 or more points.
