Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team hosts Long Beach State today at 5 pm PT in the final regular season game for both clubs. The Big West Tournament begins next Thursday, March 12 at Honda Center.
The Highlanders are also celebrating the careers of their five seniors today in ceremonies scheduled to take place prior to tip.
The 49ers are locked into the number four seed in the conference tournament, but UC Riverside can finish either fifth or sixth. A Highlanders win today, coupled with a Hawai'i loss to Cal State Fullerton, would vault UC Riverside over the Rainbow Warriors into the five spot, which would set up a First Round rematch against Long Beach State. A loss leaves the Highlanders in sixth place, where they will take on either UC Irvine or UC Santa Barbara.
UC Riverside has dropped two straight on the road heading into the weekend, but returns to the SRC Arena where they are 12-2 on the year.
Taylor Johns (16.5 ppg) and Jaylen Bland (15.7) continue to pace the UCR offense, and Bland is just seven three-pointers away from tying the school record of 100 in a season.
Long Beach State dropped five straight games from February 7-26, but righted the ship over the last seven days with wins at Cal State Fullerton and CSUN.
Mike Caffey (16.3 ppg, 36.6 3G%) and David Samuels (10.5 ppg, 7.2 rpg) give the 49ers a formidable inside-outside scoring combination, while the team's perimeter defense holds opponents to a league-low 33.1 percent shooting from three-point range.
The Highlanders are 10-32 al-time against the 49ers (
view results), and Long Beach State has won 11 straight games in the series including a 68-63 win back on February 5 of this year (
box score/
recap).
