Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team is looking for its third straight win Tuesday as the Highlanders host the Denver Pioneers in their final game before taking a break for the holidays. Tip is slated for 7 pm PT.
UCR improved to 7-5 Sunday evening with a 95-48 victory over Life Pacific (
box score/
recap). DJ Sylvester established career highs with 20 points and seven rebounds in the win, and all 13 active Highlanders dented the scoring column.
Jaylen Bland scored 17 points in just 13 minutes of action, and ranks eighth in the nation in made threes per game after draining four against the Warriors. He leads the Highlanders in scoring and is third in the Big West at 17.0 points per game. Taylor Johns would rank fourth and first respectively in scoring (16.0) and rebounding (9.6), but he hasn't played in enough games yet to qualify for league rankings.
UC Riverside is averaging 74.9 points per game, which is nearly six points higher than the Division I era high-water mark held by the 2003-04 team (69.0). The Highlanders are also defending the perimeter at a record rate, holding opponents to 26.5 percent shooting from the three-point line, which is the ninth lowest percentage in the nation.
Denver is 8-4 on the season following a 74-58 loss at Eastern Washington. That defeat snapped a three-game winning streak for the Pioneers.
Denver is equally impressive on both sides of the ball, as defensively they allow the opposition to score just 62.9 points per game, and offensively they connect on 47.9 percent of their shots from the floor and 36.9 percent from beyond the arc.
If the Pioneers have a weakness, it is on the glass where they get outrebounded by nearly seven boards per game, and average just over five offensive rebounds per contest. C.J. Bobbitt is the team's top rebounder at just 4.3 boards a night, but he hasn't played in the team's last six games. Next on the rebound chart is Joe Rosga at 3.4.
Nate Engesser leads Denver in scoring at 14.9 points per game while connecting on 57.0 percent of his shots from the floor and 51.7 percent from three-point range. Three other members of the team—Rosga (11.0), Bryant Rucker (8.8) and Marcus Byrd (8.8) are averaging more than eight points per game.
The Highlanders and Pioneers have squared off against one another on two prior occasions (
view result). The last time was on December 28, 2008 when Denver picked up a 52-46 win over UCR (
box score/
recap).
