Men's Basketball Drops Regular Season Finale, 76-66, To UC Irvine

Saturday, March 5

Riverside, CA

2:00 PM

UC Riverside

14-18, 5-11

UC Irvine

24-8, 13-3

Team	1	2	F
UC Irvine	32	44	76
UC Riverside	26	40	66

Photo by: Doug Brown

Men's Basketball Drops Regular Season Finale, 76-66, To UC Irvine

3/5/2016 9:35:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Riverside—The UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team honored its two seniors—Jaylen Bland and Steven Jones—prior to tip off of the Highlanders' regular season finale vs. UC Irvine, Saturday afternoon, and they almost continued the celebration well into the evening, as they built a 10-point second-half lead against the number two team in the Big West. But the Anteaters closed the game on a 24-4 run to escape with a 76-66 victory.

With the loss, UC Riverside finishes conference play with a 5-11 mark giving them the number six seed in next week's Big West Tournament at Honda Center in Anaheim. UCR takes on three seed Long Beach State in the quarterfinals on Thursday, March 10 at 8:30 pm PT.

Big West Standings (Final)	Big West			Overall
Team	W	L	Pct	W	L	Pct
Hawai'i (1)	13	3	.813	25	4	.828
UC Irvine (2)	13	3	.813	24	8	.750
Long Beach State (3)	12	4	.750	18	13	.581
UC Santa Barbara (4)	11	5	.688	17	12	.586
UC Davis (5)	6	10	.375	11	18	.379
UC Riverside (6)	5	11	.313	14	18	.452
CSUN *	5	11	.313	10	20	.333
Cal Poly (7)	4	12	.250	10	19	.357
Cal State Fullerton (8)	3	13	.188	10	19	.345
* CSUN is not eligible for the conference tournament due to self-imposed sanctions

The Highlanders used a 14-1 run of their own midway through the second to take their largest lead of the game at 10, 62-52, with 7:58 to go. UCR drained four of its eight three-pointers on the night during the run, with Malik Thames accounting for two from long distance. He finished the game with 10 points—one of five Highlanders to reach double figures in scoring.

UC Irvine connected on 68.4 percent of its shots in the second half to secure the come-from-behind victory, while connecting on 15 of 21 from the free throw line. The Anteaters' Luke Nelson scored 14 of his 18 points after intermission, while Mike Best led all scorers with 20 points. Mamadou Ndiaye came one point short of a double with nine points and 10 boards.

Bland led the Highlanders with 15 points, and made three three-pointers on the day extending his program single season and career records to 113 and 208 respectively. Alex Larsson chipped in with a season-high 12 points while Secean Johnson scored 11, and Gentrey Thomas added 10 to go along with a game-high six assists.