Riverside– Heading into its final game of the regular season, the UC Riverside Women's Basketball team looks to secure its current position as the fourth seed ahead of next week's conference tournament. The Highlanders host the league leading UC Davis Aggies Thursday in a tip-off scheduled for 7 pm PT inside the SRC Arena.
At the conclusion of the game, Senior and Riverside native Simone DeCoud will be honored in a ceremony held at center court.
UCR dropped a pair of pivotal games last week against Long Beach State (73-66) and at CSUN (79-70), both of whom are ahead of UCR in the conference standings. The defeat at CSUN was the first of the season for UCR when they've scored 70-79 points.
Simone DeCoud, the team's lone senior, led the Highlanders averaging 22.5 points a game in the team's two losses. She is currently ninth on the all-time scoring list with 1,276 points, and could move into eighth ahead of Julie Shaw with 28 more points this season. DeCoud is also second on the program's all-time assist list with 378 assists in her career, 27 back of Cassandra Reeves.
Head Coach John Margaritis sits at 199 wins at UCR and is only one win away from his 200th victory. Margaritis will be the fourth coach in Big West history to reach 200 wins in Women's Basketball.
The Highlanders had an opportunity to jump up to second, but now must protect their position by holding off UC Santa Barbara, who is a game and a half back. With two victories and a UCR loss, the Gauchos would overtake the fourth spot, even though the team's split the season series one apiece. UCSB could claim the #4 seed with the better record against the top-three schools in the conference at 1-5 compared to UCR at 0-6.
2016-17 Big West
Women's Basketball Standings |
| Seed |
Team |
W |
L |
| 1 |
UC Davis |
12 |
2 |
| 2 |
Long Beach State |
11 |
3 |
| 3 |
CSUN |
10 |
4 |
| 4 |
UC Riverside |
9 |
6 |
|
|
|
| 5 |
UC Santa Barbara |
7 |
7 |
| 6 |
Cal Poly |
6 |
9 |
| 7 |
Hawai'i |
6 |
8 |
| 8 |
UC Irvine |
2 |
12 |
| 9 |
Cal State Fullerton |
1 |
13 |
UC Davis arrives in the Inland Empire winners of eight straight games including a pair at home last week over Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara. They can clinch the regular season title with a victory over the Highlanders coupled with a Long Beach State loss against CSUN–a game also tipping off at 7 pm Thursday night.
The Aggies feature reigning Big West Player of the Week Pele Gianotti, who leads the team with 31 made threes and 6.4 rebounds a game during conference play. Morgan Bertsch tops the team in scoring at 16.2 per contest. Dani Nefekh is the most efficient shooter in the conference from long distance connecting on 48.5 percent of her attempts for the year.
In the first meeting of the between the clubs, UC Riverside was done in by a cold shooting third quarter in which they shot two for 18, and were outscored 26-4 by UC Davis in a, 72-55, defeat in Davis.
