Los Angeles, CA—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team heads to Los Angeles Wednesday evening where the Highlanders will face Loyola Marymount in the Lions' fourth annual LMU Holiday Classic, beginning at 5 pm PT.
The Highlanders bounced back from a tough road loss at Utah, defeating visiting Saint Katherine 102-49 (
box score/
recap) on Sunday afternoon. UCR junior guard Jaylen Bland scored a team-high 20 points, 14 of which came in the first half. His five-of-five shooting from long range helped the Highlanders move back to the .500 mark at 2-2.
Bland is the Highlanders leading scorer on the year averaging 14.5 points per game. Junior Taylor Johns joins Bland in double figures averaging 11.8 points per game.
LMU enters the week with a 2-2 record as well, following an 82-60 win over San Diego Christian on Sunday. Evan Payne's 20.5 points-per-game scoring average leads the Lions, thanks in part to 48.3 percent shooting from the floor and 42.1 percent from three-point range. Payne is the lone LMU player scoring double digits this season, but six other members of the Lions are averaging between 6.5 and 8.3 points on the year.
This will be the eighth game the Highlanders and Lions have played in the history of the two programs (
view results). UC Riverside owns a 4-3 advantage in the series, but the Lions picked up the win in the last meeting, 73-69, on December 3, 2013, Taylor Johns scored 22 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in the game (
box score/
recap/
video recap).
