BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – The CSU Bakersfield men's basketball team has three games remaining in the Western Athletic Conference regular season and CSUB is still jockeying for position before the WAC Tournament is played the second week of March. The Roadrunners will host Utah Valley on Thursday at 7 p.m. while closing out the home schedule against Seattle U on Saturday with tipoff moved up an hour to 6 p.m.
 
Two of those three remaining games will be played at home, where the Roadrunners have thrived under CSUB Head Coach Rod Barnes.  When Coach Barnes talks about defending your home court, this year is no different.  The `Runners are 7-3 overall in the Icardo Center this season, including winners of three in a row.
 
CSUB will need to pack the Icardo this week as the `Runners will want every home court advantage they can get when Utah Valley and Seattle U, both tied for second place in the WAC, come to town.
 
Utah Valley comes to Bakersfield on Thursday, Feb. 22 with a 19-8 record overall and 8-3 in the WAC looking to win their third in a row.  UVU defeated WAC leader New Mexico State and UTRGV last week and now sit only one game back of 9-2 NMSU. 
 
The Wolverines had five players score in double figures when they defeated CSUB in the conference opener back on Jan. 6, but this is a different `Runners team since that game. 
 
Coach Barnes talked about the first time CSUB played Utah Valley this season in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, "It was a tale of two halves.  We gave ourselves a chance to win in the first half.  Go on the road in a tough environment with a chance to win after 20 minutes.  But the second half, we go down and we fell apart in the second half. But we can show our guys on film that for 20 minutes we were good enough to win."
 
The `Runners have a young team and it has taken time to find who they were as a team, as well as their roles individually.  And if you have watched CSUB play the last five games, you can see Coach Barnes and his team have really started to find out, maybe even figure out who they are and what they need to do to be successful.
 
The 'Runners will welcome Seattle U to the Icardo on Saturday, Feb. 24 and it will be senior night in the Icardo Center.  The three seniors CSUB will be celebrating are Brent Wrapp, Shon Briggs and Moataz Aly. 
 
Seattle U, winners of three in a row, comes to Bakersfield with a 19-9 overall record and tied for second in the WAC with UVU at 8-3.  And after defeating first place NMSU in their last game played, SU are also only one game back of NMSU for first place in the WAC.  Seattle U is 16-2 at home, but just 2-7 in road games and six of those nine road games have been conference games.
 
The 'Runners went to SU back on Jan. 26 and dropped a heartbreaker, 59-55 in a defensive battle.  But for the 'Runners to come so close to defeating a team that has won 16 of 18 on their home court when they had not hit their stride yet, surely Coach Barnes and the `Runners are itching for revenge.
 
The `Runners could finish the WAC regular season as high as fourth place and as low as seventh place and will be seeded accordingly at the WAC Tournament.