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Men's Basketball:
Anteaters Travel to Sam Houston State, Texas A&M
Dec. 18, 2007
Complete Release in PDF Format
GAME #10: UC Irvine (4-5) vs. Sam Houston State (9-0) GAME #11: UC Irvine vs. Texas A&M UC Irvine (4-5) begins a stretch of five consecutive road games this week facing Sam Houston State Thursday (Dec. 20) and Texas A&M Saturday (Dec. 22). The Anteaters won their last two games at home, defeating San Francisco, 72-59, this past Saturday and Alaska-Fairbanks, 87-53, Dec. 8. Junior forward Kevin Bland recorded his first UCI double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds in Saturday's victory over USF. Senior center Darren Fells also scored 14 points against the Dons, senior forward Patrick Sanders added 12, senior guard Marcus McIntosh 11 and junior guard Brett Lauer 10. UCI travels to South Carolina Dec. 28 and Harvard Dec. 30 before opening the Big West Conference schedule on the road versus Cal State Fullerton Jan. 4. `EATER NOTES ► This week's games in the state of Texas are the first for UC Irvine since an 89-78 loss to former Big West Conference member North Texas in Denton Jan. 8, 1998. ► Texas A&M, at No. 14, is the highest-ranked opponent in the A.P. poll that UCI has faced since a 79-63 win at No. 13 Stanford Nov. 19, 2005. That was head coach Pat Douglass' 500th win in his four-year collegiate coaching career. ► Senior center Darren Fells ranks 13th in career rebounds at UCI with 581. He is four behind No. 12 Mark Nelson and five away from No. 11 Nick Sanden. Fells leads the Big West Conference in field-goal percentage at .627. He hit 18 of 26 field goals in the past three games for 69.2 percent. ► Junior guard Brett Lauer leads the Big West in three-point field goal percentage at .560 (14 of 25). He made 8 of 13 threes in the last three games. Lauer was 5 of 9 from the free-throw line versus USF last Saturday for his first attempts of the season. He is shooting 56 percent from three-point range and 55.6 percent from the foul line. ► Junior forward Kevin Bland is second in the Big West in steals with an average of 2.22 per game. He has recorded at least two steals in five of the season's first nine games. Bland ranks ninth in the Big West in rebounding with a 5.8 average. ► Senior guard Chuma Awaji ranks second in the conference in free-throw percentage (.864) and sophomore guard Michael Hunter is fifth in assists (3.33 per game). ► Senior guard Marcus McIntosh, who played in 10 games at Texas A&M in 2004-05, scored a career-high 11 points in 18 reserve minutes of last Saturday's victory over USF. He added three assists and two steals. ► UCI ranks second in the Big West Conference in scoring defense at 65.8 points per game. In the current two-game winning streak, the Anteaters yielded an average of 56.0 points per game. UCI is 3-0 this season when the opposition scores less than 60 points. The Anteaters are also second in the league in assist/turnover ratio at 0.93. ► Though the opposition has out-rebounded UCI this season by an average of 32.1 to 29.0 per game, the Anteaters have out-rebounded their opponents in four of the past five games. ► After averaging 10.5 three-point field goals in the previous four games, the Anteaters were just 3 of 22 in last Saturday's win over USF. ► Last Saturday marked head coach Pat Douglass' 300th game at UCI. He is 157-143 entering the Sam Houston State game and is seven victories away from becoming the career wins' leader in Anteater men's basketball history. ABOUT SAM HOUSTON STATE: Coach Bob Marlin's Bearkats are 9-0 and received one vote in this week's A.P. Top 25 poll. SHSU's wins this season include Texas Tech, Fresno State and St. Louis. The Bearkats have the nation's second-longest, non-conference home winning streak at 42 games. Duke has the longest at 55. Senior forward Ryan Bright is averaging 11.8 points and 11.9 rebounds while senior guard Shamir McDaniel is averaging 11.2 points. Since 1999-2000, SHSU has the second-best record of the Division I schools in Texas at 158-87 (.645). UCI's 70-62 overtime win over SHSU last season in Irvine was the first meeting between the schools. Chuma Awaji led the Anteaters with 15 points and a career-high 14 rebounds. ABOUT TEXAS A&M: Coach Mark Turgeon's Aggies are 9-1 entering a Wednesday (Dec. 19) home game with Detroit. Texas A&M is ranked 14th in this week's Associated Press poll and 11th in the ESPN/USA Today poll. Junior swingman Josh Carter is averaging 13.6 points and senior forward Joseph Jones 11.2 points. Freshman center DeAndre Jordan leads the team in rebounding with a 7.2 average. The Aggies are outscoring the opposition by an average of 76.9 to 59.9 and out-rebounding their opponents 42.9 to 31.2. Texas A&M has shot 51 percent from the floor in the first 10 games. The Anteaters and Aggies have met just once before with UCI winning 91-74 in the first round of the KOA Classic in Billings, Mont., Dec. 29, 1980. Two-time Anteater All-American Kevin Magee had 34 points and 13 rebounds in the victory while guard Randy Whieldon added 27 points. UCI won the tournament the next night with a 65-63, overtime win over Montana as Whieldon scored 18 points en route to tournament MVP honors. Saturday marks the Anteaters' first game against a Big 12 opponent since a 96-80 loss to Colorado in Boulder Dec. 17, 2005. UCI is 4-13 all-time versus current Big 12 Conference members with the last win coming against Texas Tech, 96-81, at the Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage Nov. 24, 1990. The Red Raiders were members of the Southwest Conference at that time.
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