FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (December 8, 2020) – The Northern Arizona men's basketball team hosts UC Riverside in their first of 11 scheduled home games in the Rolle Activity Center on Thursday at 5 p.m. Thursday's home opener, as will be the case with all of NAU's home games this season, will be streamed on Pluto TV Channel 1058 and can be heard on the Lumberjack Radio Network.
"UC Riverside beat Washington by 15 and (Monday's loss at Arizona) will not define us," said head coach
Shane Burcar. "In the next 48 hours, we'll be ready to go come Thursday against Riverside. The fun part is we get to play, we get to grind and figure it out and we will."
This season, NAU will play its entire home schedule in the Rolle Activity Center. The last season – 2010-11 – NAU played all of its home games in Rolle, the Lumberjacks posted a 12-1 home record. Last season, NAU won four of its five games played in Rolle.
The 'Jacks will seek to even their season ledger at 1-1 after suffering a 96-53 loss to Arizona Monday night in Tucson. Redshirt junior
Luke Avdalovic and junior
Cameron Shelton led the way with 16 and 15 points respectively. Shelton and Avdalovic led the team in minutes played with 33 and 32 respectively, while Shelton also tallied a team-high five rebounds. Avdalovic connected on three of NAU's five three-pointers.
Joining Avdalovic and Shelton in the Lumberjacks' first starting lineup of the season were redshirt juniors
Jay Green and
Nik Mains and sophomore
Isaiah Lewis. Although Green played just 20 minutes due to foul trouble, he did register five points, four rebounds, a team-leading three assists and one steal.
In all, five players - Green, redshirt freshmen
Carson Towt and
Jackson Larsen and true freshmen
Wynton Brown and
Carter Mahaney - played their first career games as Lumberjacks versus the Wildcats.
In addition to the Lumberjacks playing in Rolle where they have had recent success, the 'Jacks will also look to continue more than two decades of success in home openers. NAU has won 22 of its last 23 home openers. While a dozen of those wins have come against non-Division I teams, NAU's margin of victory against its 10 Division I opponents since 1997 have been by a margin of 18.9 points.
The Lumberjacks will face UC Riverside for the second consecutive year and are 5-3 all-time versus the Highlanders following a 63-56 victory last season in Riverside. Shelton totaled 15 points and eight rebounds in the win, while Mains hit a career-high four threes on his way to 12 points in the teams' first meeting in 10 years.
UC Riverside enters Thursday's tilt on a two-game winning streak. The Highlanders, picked fifth in the Big West Preseason Poll, are 2-1 after an 83-63 victory over Denver on Sunday on the heels of an impressive 57-42 win over Washington last Tuesday. Jock Perry, a graduate transfer from Saint Mary's College, leads the Highlanders with 16.0 points per game while shooting 58.8 percent from the field. Zyon Pullin is the reigning Big West Player of the Week after averaging 13.0 points, 6.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game in the team's victories over Washington and Denver.
Schedule update: NAU's scheduled game at No. 1 Gonzaga this Saturday, Dec. 12 has been postponed as a result of Gonzaga pausing all men's basketball activities through December 14 due to a positive COVID-19 test within the program. NAU and Gonzaga are working together to explore the possibility of rescheduling the game. An announcement will be made at a later date in regards to any possible rescheduling.
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