IRVINE, Calif. – UC Irvine honored three seniors with an 82-68 victory over Cal Poly at the Bren Events Center on Thursday evening.
With the win, UCI claims the Big West regular season title with a 16-3 record. It is the seventh regular season title in the last 10 years. Â The Anteaters went undefeated at home (13-0) and improve to 23-8 overall.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
> Guard Andre Henry led UCI with 16 points, going 5-9 (0.556) from the floor
> Henry was 3-4 both from long range and the stripe
> Guard Derin Saran came off the bench, knocking down 6-8 (0.750) from the field and 1-1 from the line for 13 points
> Forward Devin Tillis had nine points on 4-6 (0.667) shooting with four rebounds
> Guard Pierre Crockrell II dished 11 assists and was 4-5 (0.800) from the floor for eight points
> Center Bent Leuchten and forward Carter Welling each had eight points with Leuchten grabbing a team-best five rebounds
> Seniors Dean Keeler and Dylan Thoerner had seven and six points, respectively
> Keeler also had four rebounds and a block in his final home game
> The Anteaters shot 50 percent from the field (31-62) and 15-19 (0.789) from the free throw line
> UC Irvine outscored Cal Poly in all five specialty stat categories
> UCI held the rebound advantage over Cal Poly, 35-32
> Cal Poly's Kobe Sanders recorded a game-high 22 points on 8-13 shooting
FIRST HALF
> An interception by Pierre Crockrell II led a long pass to Devin Tillis for a layup to start the scoring at 17:36
> UCI scored five unanswered on a pair of free throws by Dylan Thoerner and a layup and free throw by Dean Keeler, 7-2
> Keeler set a screen that allowed Andre Henry to hit a trey and then a layup by Carter Welling increased the lead to 17-9 (14:08)
> Crockrell II pushed the ball up the court to find a streaking Justin Hohn (12:23) then more unselfish passing, this time by Hohn, led to a layup by Hayden Welling at 11:15, 21-11
> A rebound putback by Derin Saran stopped a 5-0 scoring run by the Mustangs, 23-16
> Henry went on to out-score Cal Poly 8-2 in a four minute span, including a three-pointer at 4:59, 34-21
> Cal Poly had a three-pointer and two free throws at 1:38 to inch to 36-33
> Crockrell II dumped the ball down to Tillis for the layup and Saran ran to the hoop for the 40-35 halftime score
SECOND HALF
>A Hohn three was followed by Bent Leuchten layup off an offensive rebound, 51-41 (17:11)
> UCI exploded for seven in a row on Saran layup, Tillis jumper and three-pointer, and a jumper by Thoerner, 64-45 (9:34)
> Carter Welling used his body to force his way up to the basket while drawing contact to convert the three-point play before another free throw make at 6:39, 72-52
> Crockrell II faked one way taking the defender with it to quickly shoot the other way, Keeler knocked down his free throws, and closed with a Crockrell II behind the back pass to Keeler for the score with 2:33 remaining, 80-62
> The Anteaters last points of the contest came at 1:23 on an extremely deep two-pointer at the top of the arc from Crockrell II. The Mustangs used two shots from the line to cut their deficit to 14 with a minute left in the contest. Both teams went scoreless for the rest of the contest as UC Irvine earned the 82-68 victory to go undefeated at home
NOTES
> UCI's bench dominated once again, outscoring Cal Poly 36-6
> UC Irvine goes to 16-6 on the year when Crockrell II dishes out five or more assists in a game
> Crockrell II moved into seventh place in program history with 378 career assists. The fifth year is now 34 assists away from catching Jerry Green (1998-02) for sixth (412)
> Crockrell II sits in third place in the all-time season assists leaderboard with his 200 assists in 2023-24. He is 30 dimes from catching Raimond Miglinieks' (1995-96) 230 that is good for second place
> Hohn sits 19th in the career three-pointers leader board and is five away from tying assistant coach Alex Young (2012-16) for 18th
> Thoerner has hit 29 of his last 30 free throws
UP NEXT
UC Irvine heads to Orange County rival Cal State Fullerton on Mar. 9 to close out the regular season. Tip-off is slated for 6 p.m.
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