Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team tips off its 2015-16 regular season Saturday with a Homecoming match up against William Jessup beginning at 4 pm PT.
The Highlanders played one exhibition game during the preseason, beating Point Loma Nazarene, 70-59 (
box score/
recap). Last year's Big West Newcomer of the Year, Jaylen Bland, led the UC Riverside offense with 18 points, while a pair of recent additions to the roster, Gentrey Thomas and Secean Johnson, added 16 and 15 points respectively.
The Highlanders were picked to finish fifth in the Big West in preseason media polling, and their top two returners, Taylor Johns and Bland, were named to the six-man, preseason all-conference team (
story).
Johns and Bland are the top returning scoring duo in the Big West after averaging a combined 31.5 points per game a year ago. Johns was named to the All-Conference First-Team last season after finishing third in the league in scoring, second in rebounding, first in blocked shots, 12th in field goal percentage and 11th in steals. This year, if he matches his scoring average from a season ago, he will graduate from UC Riverside as the leading scorer in the history of the program.
Bland earned All-Conference Second Team honors a year ago, as he finished the season ranked seventh in the Big West in scoring, first in made three-pointers, 15th in rebounding and fourth in steals. His 95 made three-pointers were the second most in the history of the program.
Last year, the Highlanders won the second most games, and the second most conference games, in their Division I history, and they return four starters from the 2014-15 squad.
William Jessup is an NAIA school located in Rocklin, California. The Warriors are 3-1 on the season, beginning the 2015-16 campaign with three straight victories. That streak came to an end Saturday in a one-point loss to Oregon Institute of Technology.
William Jessup features a balanced scoring attack with six players averaging between 7.3 and 12.8 points per game. Kelton Newman is the Warriors lone double-digit scorer, and is connecting on 45.8 percent of his three-pointers this year. More than one-third of the team's shots come from beyond the arc, and the Warriors are out-rebounding the opposition by nine boards per game.
