Saturday, November 15
4:00 PM
UC Riverside
vs
UC San Diego
Photo by: Gabriel L. Acosta
Men's Basketball Opens 2014-15 Season With Homecoming Game vs. UC San Diego
11/15/2014 12:36:00 PM | Men's Basketball
| Highlanders In Week One |
| vs. UC San Diego |
| November 15, 4 pm PT |
| Live Stats |
| Watch Live—Big West TV |
| Listen Live—gohighlanders.com / Fox Sports Radio 1350AM |
| Click For Tickets |
| Game Notes |
Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team tips off the 2014-15 season this Saturday by welcoming UC San Diego to the SRC Arena for Homecoming 2014. TIp off is slated for 4 pm PT.
The Highlanders played one exhibition game this season, topping Holy Names on November 7, 66-49 (box score/recap). Junior transfer Jaylen Bland (17 points, 12 rebounds) and last year's top returning scorer, junior Taylor Johns (16 pts, 14 rbs), paced the UC Riverside offense, while Nick Gruninger added 12 points.
UC Riverside returns four starters and seven letterwinners from a year ago led by Johns, a 2013-14 All-Big West Honorable Mention honoree. The San Francisco, California native averaged 12.0 points and 7.8 rebounds a year ago. His 72 blocked shots last season are the third most in the history of the program, and were second most in the conference a year ago.
Also back from the 2013-14 season are seniors Steven Thornton (8.9 ppg, 2.5 rpg), Nick Gruninger (6.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.6 apg) and Austin Quick (4.7 ppg, 1.9 rpg), and junior Steven Jones (4.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg). Added to the mix this season is a quartet of international newcomers (read Press-Enterprise story), Cheick Thiero (Mali), Alex Larsson (Sweden), Chris Tang (China) and Robert Boezeman (Netherlands).
UC San Diego was 15-11 a year ago and 11-11 in CCAA competition. The Tritons averaged 71.0 points per game in 2013-14 led by James McCann's 15.6 points per game. McCann graduated last year, as did MacKenzi McCullough and his 10.6 points and 6.0 rebounds, but UCSD returns its other four leading scorers from last season—Drew Dyer (12.4 points per game), Adam Klie (10.1), Hunter Walker (9.2) and Aleks Lipovic (9.0).
The Highlanders and Tritons squared off against one another 18 times during UC Riverside's Division II era, with the Highlanders winning 16 of those meetings (view all-time results). The last time the clubs met was back on February 8, 2000, and UC Riverside picked up a 69-55 decision over UCSD.
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