UC Riverside slips past Warriors, 49-43
Arinze Chidom scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds and Callum McRae added 12 points and 10 boards tonight to help visiting UC Riverside slip past Hawai’i, 49-43, in Big West Conference men’s basketball action.
A Senior Night “White-Out” crowd of 5,467 at the Stan Sheriff Center watched the Highlanders close out the game with an 10-3 run in the final three minutes to improve to 15-16 overall and 6-9 in the big West. Samuta Avea scored 10 points to lead the Warriors, who fell to 16-12, 7-7.
The game — the final home appearance for UH seniors Zigmars Raimo and Eddie Stansberry — was tight from the outset, tied 24-24 at halftime and with neither team leading by more than five points until the final 35 seconds.
The Warriors led, 40-39, after three free throws by Stansberry with 4:38 remaining, but Chidom gave UC Riverside the lead for good at 41-40 with a putback at the 3:11 mark and later put back his own miss to make it 45-40 with 1:58 left. Drew Buggs made the first of two free throws to cut it to 45-41 with 45.7 seconds remaining, but McRae converted both ends of a 1-and-1 to push the lead to 47-41 with 34.8 ticks left.
Avea cut it to 47-43 with a pull-up jumper with 22.6 seconds remaining, but Dikymbe Martin effectively sealed the victory by converting two free throws with 21.1 seconds left, as Hawai’i could not score on the ensuing possession.
More details, including video highlights and interviews, will be posted later.
Big West Conference
Saturday’s Results
at UC Davis 77, Long Beach State 76
at UC Irvine 69, UC Santa Barbara 58
at CSUN 99, Cal State Fullerton 92
UC Riverside 49, at Hawai’i 43
