CSUB to Host Fellow Big West Newcomer UC San Diego

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – The CSU Bakersfield men's basketball team has just three more weekends remaining in its regular season. The Roadrunners are preparing to host fellow Big West Conference newcomer UC San Diego, Feb. 12 and 13, in a pair of non-conference games against the Tritons, who are in the NCAA Division II to Division I transition process.

"We only have two more series after this and both of those series are going to be very very important," said Rod Barnes, Bakersfield's Head Coach, when asked if he would treat this weekend's games differently. "You want to try to go into next weekend feeling like you're really playing well, so we're going to do things as normal as possible…Right now we need to try to fine tune, to continue to get better, and hopefully be playing our best basketball over the following two weekends."

Barnes broke down what he expects out of UCSD this weekend in the Icardo Center: "If we're not ready, they're the type of team that is very dangerous because they shoot a bunch of threes and they have a bunch of perimeter players. We're going to have to do a great job and be really disciplined in our defense."

After handing Big West leader UC Irvine its first home loss of the season last weekend, CSUB (12-7, 8-4 BWC) continues to make waves in its new conference. The `Runners are currently in third place behind UCI (6-2 BWC) and UC Santa Barbara (6-2 BWC), but this season's standings will be determined by win-loss percentage, so CSUB could move into a tie or even ahead of those two teams pending this weekend's results.

UC San Diego (4-5) has not had much luck in its schedule with a total of 12 games being canceled due to COVID issues for one team or the other. The Tritons split a pair of home games against UC Davis on Jan. 22 and 23, and then dropped a 12-point decision in a single game against UC Riverside to close out the month. After their next three games were canceled, UCSD finally got back on the court Feb. 7 against Bethesda and earned a 101-64 victory.

The `Runners and Tritons will square off this Friday and Saturday in Bakersfield and the tip off times for those games were recently moved up to 4 p.m. (PT). Both games will be broadcasted live on WatchESPN and the ESPN app.

~GoRunners.com~

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