This week finds the Aggies trekking to SoCal for two tough road against Riverside tonight and Fullerton on Saturday. The road trip to Riverside and Fullerton are always seem to be difficult. Both teams are very athletic and the the games are played in small gyms with a lot of empty seats. That can make the environment tough for the visiting teams to get started with good energy and good focus. Both of these games are winnable for the Aggies but they could just as easily come home winless if they come out flat and dig themselves a holes early in these games.

Riverside's record is deceptive. They have couple of good wins. They started off the season beating Cal 74-65 and have a good win over Valpo 73-60. The Ags and the Highlanders have played a couple of common opponents. The Aggies beat Pacific twice this season while UCR lost to them at home 57-55 and both teams lost and both teams lost to Utah Valley on the road: the Ags lost by 9 and Riverside by 8.

Statistically, both teams compare equally in scoring and defense. The Highlanders are averaging 70.2 ppg and are allowing only 67.1 ppg on defense. The Aggies have the best defense in the league and the 35th best in the nation limiting their opponents to only 65.0 ppg while scoring 70.6 ppg on offense.
The Ags also lead the league in steals at 8.1 per game. On paper these two teams are very equal so it looks like this will be a dogfight with Riverside having the home floor advantage. The Aggie defense against Irvine last week was about as good as it gets and they'll need to play D like that again against UCR to be successful.

A trio of players lead the Highlander offense. Leading the way is their hometown grown 6'1 So G Dikymbe Martin at 12.8 ppg, then 6'3 RSr G Chance Murray with 11.6 ppg and their 6'10 Sr F Alex Larsson from Sweden scoring 10.4 ppg.

The game will be televised live on ESPN3 at 7 pm:

http://www.espn.com/watch/_/id/3223670/uc-davis-vs-uc-riverside-m-basketball

Go Ags!