|
Men's Basketball:
UC Irvine Travels to San Jose State Monday Night
Dec. 26, 2009 Game #12 UC Irvine (6-5) vs. San Jose State (6-5) Series Record: UCI leads 26-17 Radio: KUCI/88.9 FM (Mark Roberts, 16th season) `EATERS, SPARTANS MEET AGAIN: UC Irvine (6-5) faces San Jose State (6-5) Monday night in San Jose in the teams' second meeting this month. The Spartans rallied for a 69-56 victory at the Bren Center Dec. 18 behind 31 points from Adrian Oliver. Eric Wise led UCI with 15 points. The `Eaters are coming off a 74-61 win over Pepperdine at the Bren Center last Monday night. Wise led UCI with 23 points while Michael Hunter scored 16 and Darren Moore 14. BIG WEST PLAY STARTS JAN. 2: UCI opens Big West Conference play Saturday (Jan. 2) hosting UC Santa Barbara at 7:05 p.m. in the Bren Center. The `Eaters face Cal Poly Monday, Jan. 4, also in the Bren at 7:05 p.m. UC Santa Barbara was picked to finish second in the conference in the preseason media poll. Cal Poly was chosen to finish ninth and UCI eighth. Coach Pat Douglass' UCI squad enters the week with the second-best overall record in the Big West. Pacific leads at 7-4 while UCSB (4-4) is fifth and Cal Poly (3-7) is eighth. `EATER NOTES --- Senior guard Michael Hunter became the 19th UCI player to reach 1,000 career points in the 69-56 loss to San Jose State Dec. 18.
He enters Monday night's game with 1,028 points in his Anteater career. Hunter ranks No. 3 all-time at UCI with 184 threes and 132 steals. Ross Schraeder (2002-06) is the UCI leader in threes with 233 and Jeff Gloger (2002-05) tops the career list with 167 steals. UCI CAREER 3-POINT FIELD GOALS UCI CAREER STEALS Hunter's 253 career assists rank 11th in UCI history. Hunter leads the Big West in free-throw percentage at .885, hitting 23 of 26 for the season. He is second in three-point field goals made per game at 2.5, eighth in scoring (14.6) and ninth in assists (2.7) and steals (1.3). --- Sophomore forward Eric Wise ranks fourth in the Big West in free-throw percentage (.813), sixth in assists (3.4), ninth in scoring (14.0) and 11th in rebounding (5.5). Wise has 29 assists in the past six games and leads UCI with 37 on the season. His 23 points in last Monday's 74-61 win over Pepperdine tied his season high and was the eighth 20-point game of his young career. Wise was selected to the media's preseason All-Big West team. He averaged 14.0 points and 6.0 rebounds last season when he was named to the All-Big West Second and Freshman teams. His father, Francois Wise, is a former All-American player at Long Beach State and his uncle, Willie Wise, was a standout in the ABA in the 1970s. --- Senior center Zack Atkinson leads the Big West in blocked shots with 16 for a 1.8 average. Atkinson ranks fifth in the Big West in field-goal percentage at .578. His eight rebounds in last Monday's victory over Pepperdine marked his second-highest total of the season. He had 10 boards in the Dec. 12 win over Vanguard. --- Junior guard Darren Moore ranks fourth in the Big West in steals with 18 for a 1.6 average. He has recorded at least one in each of the season's first 11 games. Moore scored a season-high 14 points in last Monday's win over Pepperdine on 6-of-10 shooting. --- Freshman guard Mike Wilder ranks third in the Big West in three-point field goal percentage at .519 on 14 of 27. Wilder, after a five-game stretch where he hit 12 of 17 treys, has cooled off in the last two games, hitting just 1 of 9. Junior center Peter Simek has collected 19 rebounds in the last three games. He is averaging 3.4 on the season. --- Junior forward Pavol Losonsky is questionable for Monday night's game with a sprained right ankle sustained in practice Dec. 20. Losonsky, who did not play in last Monday's win over Pepperdine, is averaging 6.9 points and 4.2 rebounds this season. He has made eight starts. --- UCI has committed a season-low nine turnovers in each of the last two games. The `Eaters are second in the Big West in assist/turnover ratio (1.1) and they are tied for first (with Pacific) in blocked shots at 3.0 per game. ABOUT SAN JOSE STATE: Fifth-year head coach George Nessman's Spartans are 6-5 overall following a 74-68 win at Santa Clara last Wednesday. Junior guard Adrian Oliver leads SJSU in scoring at 19.9 points per game, averaging 27.5 over the past four games. He has three 30-point games this season. Junior guard Justin Graham is averaging 10.9 points. The last time that UCI and SJSU met at The Event Center in San Jose was Dec. 17, 2004 as the `Eaters claimed a 76-55 victory. Ross Schraeder scored a game-high 26 points for UCI, hitting 8 of 13 threes. Jeff Gloger added 11 points and six assists. ON THIS DATE: Twenty-one years ago, on Dec. 28, 1988, UCI defeated UCLA, 91-90, at the Bren Center as Kevin Floyd drove the length of the floor for the game-winning lay-in as time expired. Floyd led the `Eaters with 26 points and eight assists and Mike Doktorczyk added 18 points. Rod Palmer, a former Bruin, scored 16 points for UCI and Jeff Herdman added 15. Trevor Wilson led UCLA with 30 points, Don MacLean had 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Pooh Richardson scored 18 points. |
