Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team looks to remain undefeated this week as the Highlanders host Santa Clara on Thursday, November 19 and travel to San Francisco on Saturday, November 21. Both games are scheduled to begin at 7 pm PT.
UCR opened its 2015-16 campaign with a 100-68, Homecoming victory over William Jessup (
box score/
recap). The Highlanders haven't started a season with wins in each of their first two games since the 1998-99 campaign.
Taylor Johns and Jaylen Bland were named to the six-man, preseason all-conference team, and they both scored 23 points in UC Riverside's season-opening win. Johns added 11 rebounds for his 17th career double-double. Newcomers Gentrey Thomas and Secean Johnson each began their Highlanders careers with double-digit scoring efforts with 12 and 11 points respectively.
Santa Clara opened its season with three losses at the 2015 Cable Car Classic—65-63 in double overtime to Lipscomb, 55-33 to Denver and 71-65 to Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Broncos are connecting on just 34.6 percent of their field goal attempts an 26.8 percent of their three-pointers.
Jared Brownridge leads the team in scoring at 13.3 points per game, but he is making just 28.2 percent of his field goals and 22.2 percent from long distance. KJ Feagin is averaging 11.7 points per game and leads the team with a 60.9 percent field goal percentage and a 44.4 percent connect rate from beyond the arc. Nate Kratch's 8.0 rebounds per game are top on the team.
UC Riverside and Santa Clara squared off against one another for the first and only time on December 28, 2005 as the Broncos came away with a 63-61 victory (
box score/
recap).
San Francisco began its 2015-16 campaign with a 78-75 victory at University of Illinois-Chicago. The Dons take on Rice Monday evening before traveling to Fresno State for a Thursday evening tip.
Tim Derksen (17 points) Devin Watson (15), Ronnie Boyce (13) and Montray Clemons (10) each scored in double figures for San Francisco in the win over UIC, and Derksen added 12 rebounds for his first double-double of the year.
This is the first meeting between the Highlanders and Dons.
