UCRMBB Martin Shooting
Carlos Puma
53
UC Riverside UCR 12-8,2-2 Big West
69
Winner UC Irvine Irvine 11-8,3-0 Big West
UC Riverside UCR
12-8,2-2 Big West
53
Final
69
UC Irvine Irvine
11-8,3-0 Big West
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
UC Riverside UCR 22 31 53
UC Irvine Irvine 38 31 69

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Highlanders Stumble At UC Irvine, But Spirits Remain Positive After, 69-53, Loss

Presented by Altura Credit Union







Altura Credit Union
IRVINE, Calif — The UC Riverside Highlanders (12-8, 2-2) were hoping to rebound Saturday night after Thursday night's home loss to CSUN, but UC Irvine (11-8, 3-0) wanted to stake their claim as the defending Big West Champions by handing Riverside their second straight loss 69-51.  

The Anteaters jumped out to 7-0 start, but UC Riverside bounced back to close the gap at the first media time-out behind Dominick Pickett's seven straight points, enabling the Highlanders to pull within two, trailing 10-8 at the 15-minute mark in the first half. The Anteaters continued to counter every UCR miscue and the lead ballooned to 16 going into halftime, with UCI leading 38-22.  The Highlanders shot just 23% in the first half, shooting 7-for-30 and just 3-of-12 from the three-point line.  Conversely, UCI  shot 59% on 16-of-27 from the field and an efficient 4-of-7 from beyond the arc.

Head Coach, David Patrick, said of the first half, "This is a learning curve, this is the best team in the league and its tough to win on this floor.  We could've wilted and gone from down 16 to 30 real quick, but we got our fight where we needed it to be."  Patrick had high praise of Dominick Pickett in that first half.  "Dom is great, he is one of our captains, he knows he didn't play great against  CSUN and I'm glad he bounced back, but we need some other guys to step up. You can play good defense, but there is a pressure to play good offense too."

The second half started with the Highlanders showing that fight, cutting into the Anteater lead.  Once down 19, UC Riverside got to within eight, but a technical foul shifted the momentum back into the Anteaters' favor. UCI had a balanced attack offensively with 10 players making an impact.  Only two Anteaters scored in double figures (Evan Leonard 13, Brad Greene 11), but as a team they shot 57% from the floor for the game connecting on 28-of-49 shots and 4-of-11 from beyond the three-point line. The Highlanders did however, put up 11 more shots in the defeat but were 17-of-60 and just 4-of-18 from the three-point line.  They also grabbed three more rebounds than the defending Big West Champions, but that was not enough in the loss.  

Dikymbe Martin was the only Highlander to score in double figures with 10 points.  Angus McWilliam added nine points to go along with a game high eight rebounds in the loss.

"The shots just didn't fall tonight. We out-rebounded, shot more attempts, shot more free throws than them - 22 free throws tonight and last year we were shooting five-to-six free throws a game. So we've come a long way there, we just need to execute better on offense and know who's hot and get the ball to the right people and execute better," Patrick stated after the game.

Coach Patrick was very positive after tonight's game stating,"It's going to be another tough week, John Smith (head coach for Cal Poly) has his team playing so hard and it will be a tough test for us at home. The following game, Saturday at Santa Barbara, will be no easy feat, but we've been tested, been in tough environments, and I'm just hoping to get better and we will get another shot at these guys in a month or so at our place."

The Highlanders look to get back to their winning ways against Cal Poly on Thursday, January at the SRC.  The game will be at 7pm and will be covered on ESPN3 and on go highlanders.com.