BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – A holiday-season road trip is on the schedule for the CSU Bakersfield men's basketball team this week. Fresh off a last-second victory over Idaho, the Roadrunners are headed to Texas to play Abilene Christian on Wednesday, Dec. 15, before taking on Colorado on Saturday, Dec. 18.
"We're still not playing as well as we're capable of playing," said Rod Barnes, Bakersfield's eleventh-year Head Coach. "This is a marathon. We want to be hitting all cylinders come March and we're not rushing that process."
Barnes continued on to talk about the versatility his roster contains and how that will help during this week's road trip: "[Idaho] played small, so we had to play small with them. It will probably be the same at Abilene, but when we go to Colorado we'll probably have to play bigger because they have got size…We've got a lot of room for improvement, but I think we've got a chance to have a great team."
Bakersfield (4-2) will ride the momentum of a three-game win streak into the road stint. CSUB will make its first stop in Abilene to face the Wildcats (6-2) who are on a six-game run of their own. ACU is on a stretch of its schedule that features eight-consecutive home games as the Teague Center has been good to the home squad. The `Runners and Wildcats will be playing their first-ever game against each other.
Saturday's contest in Boulder, Colo. features CSUB's second Pac-12 opponent of the season in Colorado. The Buffaloes boast an 8-3 record and they have posted strong results recently, including a pair of competitive losses to No. 5 UCLA and No. 13 Tennessee. The `Runners have only played Colorado twice in the all-time series and this will be the first meeting since the 2011-12 season, Barnes' first in Bakersfield.
CSUB's game against Abilene Christian will be broadcasted live on ESPN+ while the contest against Colorado will be nationally televised on the Pac-12 Networks.
Due to scheduling conflicts with local radio stations, the ACU game will see Bakersfield's radio broadcast moved to a live audio stream on the CSUB Athletics YouTube account. Isaac Lowenkron and the live courtside action will return to KERN Radio on Saturday. For links to the video and radio broadcasts, live stats, tickets, and more, visit GoRunners.com/Live.
~GoRunners.com~
