Women's Basketball Travels To LMU For Last Game Before Final Exams

Article posted by California Gazette Photo by Carlos Puma

Los Angeles, CA—The UC Riverside Women's Basketball Team travels to Loyola Marymount Saturday evening before taking a one-week break for final exams. Tip at Gersten Pavilion is slated for 7 pm PT.

The Highlanders (5-3) have lost three straight games heading into the weekend, but the most recent loss came in a hard-fought battle at UCLA which saw UCR lead by as many as 10 points in the first half, before the Bruins were able to claw their way to a 57-43 victory.

Brittany Crain extended her string of consecutive double-digit scoring performances to 17 by scoring a game-high 15 points at UCLA. She ranks fifth in the nation overall in scoring at 24.6 points per game, and leads the Big West. As a team, UC Riverside is second in the conference in scoring at 71.9 points per game. They are also ranked in the top three in field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage, all while committing the fewest turnovers per game in the league.

LMU is 2-5 on the year, most recently dropping a pair of road games at Northern Arizona, 82-64, and Seattle, 62-57. The Lions are basically a five-woman team as Deanna Johnson (13.7 ppg), Sophie Taylor (11.4), Taylor Anderson (11.3), Leslie Lopez-Wood (11.1) and Emily Ben-Jumbo (9.0) account for 86 percent of the teams scoring and have played 75 percent of the team's minutes. Each of LMU's top four scorers averages more than 30 minutes per game.

As a team, the Lions are making 40.1 percent of their shots from the field, but just 26.7 percent from long distance. Opponents have taken 50 more free throw attempts than LMU on the year, and committed 20 fewer turnovers.

The Highlanders are 6-3 all-time against Loyola Marymount, but the Lions picked up wins in the two most recent meetings between the clubs back in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons