Griscti leads UC Riverside over UC Irvine
UC Riverside men's basketball coach Mike Magpayo has played UC Irvine enough to know the Anteaters have a weakness.
They struggle to guard big men who can shoot from long range.
Magpayo used that vulnerability to his advantage on Saturday night and Benjamin Griscti followed the game plan, resulting in a surprising 88-78 win over the Big West Conference leader at SRC Arena.
Griscti, a 6-11 junior transfer from Incarnate Word, shot 6 for 10 from 3-point distance and scored a season-high 26 points for Riverside (10-15 overall, 5-8 Big West), which has won two in a row following a three-game skid.
“We've played them for five years and one of their cryptonites is having a shooting 5 man,” Magpayo said. “Ben was a big factor in winning this one and, obviously, a lot of other guys hit shots too.”
Kyle Owens added 16 points for Riverside, Isaiah Moses scored 13 points and fellow guard Nate Pickens finished with 12 points and six assists.
“It was great for Ben to get off,” Magpayo said. “That created penetration for the guards and everybody else.”
The Anteaters (18-7, 11-2) knew what to expect from Riverside after Griscti scored 18 points against them in a 7366 win by Irvine on Dec. 28.
UCI started 6-10 freshman Carter Welling to provide more mobility against Griscti and even tried guarding him with 6-6 forward Devin Tillis, but Griscti just posted up on the smaller defender.
“He had his best game of the year in our first game and in this game I didn't think we competed like we respected that guy,” Irvine coach Russell Turner said of Griscti. “I thought he dominated us from the 3-point line and he also dominated us inside. That was really disappointing.”
Welling and Pierre Crockrell II had 14 points each to lead the Anteaters. Andre Henry was the only other Irvine player in double figures with 11 points.
Justin Hohn, Irvine's leading scorer on the season at 13 points a game, was held to six points on 2-for 7 shooting.
The other two big men for the Anteaters, Bent Leuchten and Dean Keeler, combined for seven points and eight rebounds in 20 minutes.
“We had a couple key guys who just didn't look like they were at a competitive level for this game for whatever reason and that became contagious,” Turner said. “Typically, it goes the other way.”
Irvine scored the first seven points of the game, but that was as big a lead as it would take before UCR went on an 11-0 run to move ahead 20-15 with 8:34 left in the first half.
Riverside would expand its lead to as many as 13 points before taking a 41-30 advantage into the half.
Irvine staged a comeback with an 11-0 run that cut the deficit to 48-47 with 13:31 left, but UCR came right back with a 10-0 run of its own.
“Second half, we go through these little droughts,” Magpayo said. “Having a young team, not being able to ride them as hard, we try to take some deep breaths and get to the next play . ... We've been saying, `We've got to get over this hump, get over this hump of these little droughts.' ... It was amazing to see the guys just grow.”
UCR extended its lead to as much as 20 points with 3:08 left before the Anteaters cut the final deficit in half.
RIVERSIDE >> THE SCORE
UC RIVERSIDE 88, UC IRVINE 78
Up next: UC Riverside at Cal State Fullerton, Thursday, 7 p.m., ESPN+; Cal State Bakersfield at UC Irvine, Saturday, 7 p.m., ESPN+