Riverside—It's Showtime! at the SRC Arena this Saturday as the UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team hosts Hawai'i in a nationally-televised game on ESPNU. Tip is slated for 8:30 pm PT.
The Highlanders are off to their best start since the 2008-09 season, when UCR finished the year 17-13. They continue to challenge the program's Division I records in a number of offensive categories including points per game, field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage.
Jaylen Bland is coming off of a career-high 29 points performance in the Highlanders loss to UC Davis on Thursday (
box score/
recap). He drained seven shots from long distance against the Aggies, all in the second half, coming up one three ball short of tying the school record for threes in a game.
Taylor Johns was held to six points in Thursday's loss, but he still leads UC Riverside with 16.4 points and 8.5 rebounds per game.
Hawai'i has been lying in wait for the Highlanders all week as the Rainbow Warriors have been off since last Saturday. They are 13-5 overall and 1-1 in the Big West after dropping their conference opener to Cal Poly, 61-57, and upending CSUN, 83-68.
Hawai'i's 13 wins are the most in the Big West, but only four of their games have come away from the Aloha State.
The Rainbow Warriors lead the conference in scoring at 73.6 points per game, and defensively they average a Big West-best 9.6 steals per game while holding opponents to 29.7 percent from three-point range—one of the 50 lowest percentages in the nation.
Hawai'i boasts one of the most balanced scoring attacks in the country as Aaron Valdes (16.3) and Garrett Nevels (11.4) average in double figures, but Isaac Fleming, Roderick Bobbitt, Mike Thomas and Negus Webster-Chan each average between 8.4 and 9.4 points per game.
The Highlanders are 1-5 all-time against Hawai'i, but the Rainbow Warriors have won each of the last five meetings (
view results).
