Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team returns home this Saturday for a 5 pm PT tip against CSUN.
The Highlanders dropped both games on their coastal California road trip last week to fall to 9-11 overall and 2-4 in the Big West. They have fared much better at home this season with wins in eight of ten games.
Taylor Johns averaged 16.5 points last week with a game-high 19 at Cal Poly (
box score/
recap) and 14 vs. UC Santa Barbara (
box score/
recap). He still leads the team in scoring (16.0) and rebounding (8.1) while ranking 5th and 3rd in the conference respectively.
Jaylen Bland is still on pace the break the program record for made three-pointers, and Steven Thornton is averaging 12.5 points per game over his last 13 contests, raising his season scoring average to 10.3 points per game.
The Matadors had high hopes entering the 2014-15 campaign following a 2013-14 season which saw them finish 17-18 overall and 7-9 in the Big West in Reggie Theus' first year as head coach. They have struggled so far this year, though, with a 6-15 overall mark and 2-4 in conference.
Defense has been CSUN's Achilles heal this season as they are allowing 70.8 points per game. Opponents are making 36.4 percent of their three-pointers on the year and making more than five more threes per game than the Matadors.
CSUN's Stephen Hicks and Stephen Maxwell are among the leading scorers in the Big West at 16.6 and 15.2 points per game
The Highlanders are 33-38 all-time against CSUN (
view results) with wins in five of their last eight meetings, including last year's 106-105, 2 OT victory on March 1 (
box score/
recap).
