San Francisco, CA—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team had its sights set on a 3-0 start to the year for the first time since the 1996-97 season Saturday evening, as well as its first road-opening victory since the 1998-99 campaign, and everything was going according to plan until the final 43 seconds of play. That's when San Francisco scored the first of six straight points to turn a 57-52 Highlanders advantage into a 58-57 Dons victory.

UC Riverside and San Francisco entered the weekend averaging a combined 165 points per game, but the offensive fireworks never materialized. Instead, fans saw a grind-it-out possession game which the Highlanders led for more than 33 minutes. Malik Thames, who scored a team-high 15 points, drained his fifth three-pointer of the night with 58 seconds remaining to put UCR up 57-52. From that point on, though, everything that could go wrong did for the Highlanders.

On the Dons next possession, Devin Watson missed a jumper, but Tim Derksen secured the offensive rebound. Watson got the ball back, and attempted a three from the baseline, The shot was off the mark, but as it bounced off the rim, the official blew his whistle to call a foul on Thames.

Watson made the first two free throws, but missed the third. Once again, the Highlanders failed to secure the rebound as the ball bounced out of bounds, and officials ruled that it went off UC Riverside last.

On the subsequent Dons possession, the ball once again found its way into Watson's hands, and once again, Thames was whistled for a foul. Watson drained both, to pull San Francisco to within one, 57-56, with 38 seconds left.

The Highlanders ran the clock down under 10 seconds, and Thames drove the ball into the lane drawing multiple defenders. He flipped the ball to the baseline, where Secean Johnson was waiting, and Johnson laid the ball in to give the Highlanders what they thought was a three-point lead. The baseline official blew his whistle, though, calling Johnson for a charge, wiping the basket off the scoreboard.

With seven seconds left, UC Riverside needed just one defensive stop to walk away with the win, but it wasn't to be, as Derksen slipped behind the defense on the inbounds play, and Watson found him for an easy lay up and the victory.
 
On the night, the Highlanders took just five free throws, while Watson went to the line 16 times by himself making 14 en route to a career-high 27 points. Derksen finished with an 11-point, 13-rebound double-double, and Chase Foster added 13 points as the Dons trio accounted for 51 of the team's 58 points.

Johnson scored 11 points for UC Riverside to join Thames in double figures, while Robert Boezeman added 10. The Highlanders, who came into the game making better than 50 percent of their shots from the field, were held to 35.5 percent on the night, although they did make 11 of 30 from three-point range.

UC Riverside returns home this Tuesday for a 7 pm PT tip against Delaware State at the SRC Arena.