RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Behind 15 points from Dragan Elkaz, UC Riverside paired a strong start with a runaway finish to overcome a mid-game surge from Longwood and pull out a 71-58 win in the Collegiate Hoops Roadshow Tuesday night at SRC Arena.
Playing to remain unbeaten on their home court, the Highlanders (5-2) jumped out to a 19-0 lead, bounced back after Longwood claimed control of the middle 20 minutes of the game, and overcame a late deficit with a 24-12 game-ending run. Elkaz scored nine points during that end-game rally, hitting three three-pointers, including back-to-back triples that extended a one-point lead to seven with 5:01 to play.
Those three-pointers from Elkaz sparked a game-clinching shooting onslaught from the Highlanders, who hit 6-of-7 treys in the final 5:35 of the game to shut down a Longwood rally that had the Lancers (4-3) poised to complete what would have been its largest comeback since overcoming a 20-point deficit in a 92-81 win over Radford on Feb. 27, 2016.
Between UC Riverside's 19-0 run to open the game and the 24-12 rally to close it, Longwood outscored the Highlanders 42-20 for a span of more than 23 minutes. However, that comeback fell short in the closing minutes, beginning when George Willborn III jumpstarted a quick 8-0 run with under 10 minutes to play and continuing when Elkaz put the game away for good with his rally-starting three-pointers.
"We weren't ready to compete," head coach
Griff Aldrich said of Longwood's sluggish start. "They had four offensive rebounds before the first media timeout, they were shooting 70 percent and they were just taking it right to us. We talked about at the outset, that we want to always be the team that's the aggressor, the team that's competing. This is now the third time we've had that problem, and I have to take responsibility for it, that they're not ready to compete at the level they need to compete. They're playing hard, but they're not competing, and there's a difference."
UC Riverside's bookending run negated a bounceback effort that saw the Lancers respond to UC Riverside's game-opening 19-0 run with a 19-3 run of their own. Longwood took the lead for the first time, 32-31, less than four minutes into the second half, and led as late as 9:05 before back-to-back layups from Willborn and Callum McRae reclaimed the Highlanders' lead for good.
Elkaz was one of four double-digit scorers for UC Riverside with his game-high 15 points joining Dominick Pickett's 14, McRae's 13 and Willborn's 12. The Highlanders hit 11 three-pointers, including seven in the second half, and used their top-five NCAA-ranked defense to hold Longwood to just .269 (7-of-26) shooting from three-point range.
Playing their first game in eight days, Longwood got a pair of double-digit scoring efforts off the bench with
DeShaun Wade amassing 12 points and
Juan Munoz adding 11 points. Wade added a career-high 12 rebounds for Longwood's first double-double of the year, while junior forward
Jordan Cintron also added 10 points for his second straight double-digit scoring game.
"We decided we were going to compete," Aldrich said of Longwood's turnaround. "I think the guys got embarrassed and know that we're better than what we were showing. DeShaun hit some shots, we started to hit some pull-ups which we knew we were going to have to make, and early from about the 12-minute mark in the first half, you're absolutely taking it to them at that point. They were on their heels, and then we came out in the second half and started again.
"But we told them at halftime, I'm going to ask you two questions – who competed the hardest, and who was the aggressor? I can live with either the win or the loss if the answer is us, but unfortunately the answer was not us in the second half. I think it was fueled by mental mistakes and a lack of competitiveness there at the end."
The Lancers will remain in California for another road matchup, next heading north to Stockton, Calif., to face Pacific this Friday, Nov. 29, at 10 p.m. EST. That game will mark the midway point of Longwood's six-game road stretch, which will then resume with contests at North Carolina A&T on Dec. 4, at Morgan State on Dec. 7 and at Stetson on Dec. 15.
#GoWood
