Riverside—The UC Riverside Women's Basketball Team rings in the New Year at home this Saturday, January 3 with a 12 pm PT tip at the SRC Arena against Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).
At 8-5, the Highlanders are off to their best start since the 1997-98 season when they were 9-4. They went 1-1 over the weekend at the Cyclone Challenge beating Brown, 79-65 (
box score/
recap), but falling to host Iowa State, 71-54 (
box score/
recap).
Brittany Crain ranks 10th in the nation in scoring at 23.0 points per game and recently won her third Big West player of the week award of the season. Simone DeCoud (12.9) and Annelise Ito (11.8) are also scoring in double figures this year for the Highlanders.
UC Riverside is second in the conference in scoring at 71.7 points per game and makes a league-best 37.0 percent of its shots from beyond the arc.
UMKC enters the New Year with a 2-11 record and losses in each of the last eight games including a 72-52 decision at Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday. The Roos' wins came against Eastern Illinois, 69-53, to start the regular season, and Mississippi Valley State, 62-46, in late November.
They average 55.2 points per game in part due to committing 17.8 turnovers per contest. UMKC's perimeter defense is solid, as they hold the opposition to 29.4 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
Calli White is the team's lone double-digit scorer at 11.8 points per game, but she makes just 34.5 percent of her shots from the floor including 31.1 percent from beyond the arc, and commits five turnovers per game. Four other members of the team average between 6.4 and 8.4 points.
This is the second meeting between the Highlanders and Roos, although the first was nearly three decades ago. UMKC picked up a 77-66 victory over UC Riverside on January 6, 1986.
