Gameday: UC Riverside
You’d expect tonights’ battle between UC Riverside and Hawaii at the Stan Sheriff Center to be a lopsided affair. The odds reflect that, as UH is a 14.5-point favorite.
Still, the Rainbow Warriors (22-3, 11-1 BWC) know they cannot let up to maintain a firm grasp on first place in the conference. If they win tonight and Saturday on senior night against Cal State Northridge, they will clinch the No. 1 seed in the BWC tournament and assure themselves, at the very least, an NIT berth.
UCR (13-15, 4-8) is without the explosive Taylor Johns, who was dismissed from the team last week by coach Dennis Cutts for violations of team rules. The Highlanders will turn to sharpshooting Jaylen Bland and Secean Johnson to carry their workload.
The Rainbows beat the Highlanders 80-71 at SRC Arena last month, in which Johns was a nonfactor with foul trouble. Bland and Johnson shot their team back into it and UH had to rally late.
But UH is fully healthy, and clearly playing loose coming into this one coming off its comeback win at UC Irvine.
UCR has not won in Honolulu in four previous meetings here.
From OC Sports, here were UH players basically doing a dunk-off in warmup lines:
Oh, you know, just the pre-game DUNKS…that is all. #weseeyouQ #HawaiiMBB | 'Bows vs UCR tonight!!! #GoBows pic.twitter.com/lMVXDWRyFs
— Oceanic Sports (@OCSportsTV) February 26, 2016
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From today’s print edition, here was Ferd Lewis discussing the remote possibility of UH earning an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. (Subscriber content)
Thomas needs to take them open jumpers when left alone as you saw defenders leaving him alone out there.
IMO, Fleming doesn’t look 100%.
Most years, Hawaii is in a three-way tie for fourth and a loss drops them into seventh place.
Jankovic has to stop acting like Petras Balocka and just keep on playing.
Rodrick Bobbitt needs to remember that he is the team captain. It is his job to settle the team down.
He has to be Zeppo Marx, not Groucho.
Thomas was a REAL liability out there. riverside wouldn’t even guard him and would drop his man in the paint to double Jankovic (who whines WAY too much about foul calls).
Brian, any insight into this mess with Bobbitt and the UCR coach? What was Bobbitt saying to him in the handshake line? I was originally hoping he was apologizing for being an ass…but I guess not.
Unfortunate…these guys have worked really hard and been fun to watch! This close to the “promised land”, I’d hate for it all to go to their head and not win out for the conf title. Sadly, I won’t be surprised if they mess it up…it never seems to matter how hard a UH team succeeds. In the end, we too-often shoot ourselves in the foot somehow!
A relative who sits behind the opposing team’s (Riverside’s) bench stated that the Riverside coach was making eye contact with and talking to the UH players throughout the game. I believe that the Riverside coach who “lost it” several times during the game and had to be surrounded by/restrained by his team should have received a warning followed by technical fouls. The referees should have been responsible for taking care of the situation during the game before things got out of hand. Note that not all of the technical fouls were on Hawaii.
I feel bad for Mike.
He is trying to fill Issac Fotu’s shoes.
I don’t like it when he puts the ball on the hardwood. In other words, I don’t like it when he looks for his own shot.
His scoring should come off offensive rebounds.
He plays better on the road.