Tag: UC Irvine Anteaters

San Jose State Falters Late to UC Irvine 72-63

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San Jose State University Spartans guard Ben Roseborough (11) drives the lane for a layup against the UC Irvine Anteaters at Provident Credit Union Event Center in San Jose on Sun Nov 30, 2025 (SJSU Spartans photo)

By Ryan Hannagan

SAN JOSE, Calif. — UC Irvine held off San Jose State 72-63 on Saturday afternoon at Provident Credit Union Event Center, pulling away midway through the second half after a tight, back and forth matchup for most of the game.

The meeting marked the first of a four-game homestand for the Spartans (3-5), who entered the day coming off a win over Loyola Chicago. The Anteaters (5-4) arrived with slight favorability at a 53% win probability, per ESPN — and validated it behind strong transition play and a dominant performance from guard Derin Saran.

San Jose State remained without key contributor Javaughn Hannah, but early on, the game lived up to expectations of being closely contested. Sadraque Nganga opened the scoring with a free throw, but the Spartans didn’t make their first field goal until nearly three minutes in, when Jermaine Washington slammed home a fast break dunk. The Spartans struggles from the field continued the entirety of the game.

Despite shooting just 28% from the field in the first half, the Spartans kept the deficit manageable. UC Irvine built leads of six and later nine, but San Jose State repeatedly clawed back, including a tip in at the buzzer to trim the halftime score to 36-34. Nganga led SJSU with 10 points at the break, while Saran paced UCI with 12.

Washington tied the game at 36 to open the second half, but once again the Anteaters responded with a run. A three from Adrian Myers in his return off the bench briefly halted the momentum, yet UC Irvine continued to generate separation.

The Spartans’ offensive struggles worsened as the half progressed. UC Irvine’s lead swelled to 11 with just over 10 minutes remaining, capitalizing on SJSU turnovers, defensive lapses and transition miscues. San Jose State made one final push, trimming the deficit to five after a sequence of scores from Yaphet Moundi and Ben Roseborough, but Saran responded with a three pointer and a layup on consecutive possessions to restore a double digit lead.

A late three from UCI’s Justin Dixon extended the margin to 69-58 with 4:24 left, effectively sealing the game. The Anteaters held control from there.

“The physicality,” Roseborough told Sports Radio Service when asked about the cause of second half collapse. “They hit first, you got to hit first. Loose balls, everything like that, you got to get to it. They played way harder than us tonight.”

Head coach Tim Miles echoed that assessment.

“Credit Irvine — they ran the floor well. They did all the things that winning teams do. … Ultimately, I didn’t think we were great in transition defense and I didn’t think we converted well on the offensive side, especially in the interior.”

San Jose State shot just 31% from the field (22 of 70) compared with UC Irvine’s 49% (30 of 61). Despite winning the rebounding battle 43-41 — including 19 offensive boards — the Spartans were outscored 50-26 in the paint and 24-6 on fast breaks.

Roseborough led SJSU with 12 points. Saran finished with a game-high 24 for the Anteaters.

The loss marks San Jose State’s first home setback of the season. The Spartans continue their homestand later this week as they look to regroup and find their footing before conference play.

Michael Duca on Cal basketball

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by Michael Duca

BERKELEY–There were a couple of performances from last Monday night’s game at Haas Pavilion against the UC Irvine Anteaters that Cal put on that really didn’t even jump out at you from the stat sheet. That were critically important Tyrone Wallace had a career high 11 rebounds from the lane position last night and he had Justin Cobbs as Cal’s point guard. When they lost in the consolation round to Dayton in Maui David Kravish was just about worn out by them and Richard Solomon was missing his second straight game with a cornea operation.

The Bears had no real post presence they couldn’t go inside outside so all they could do is shoot outside the zone and Cobb put up 31 points and they lost by two or three handful of points about 18. Cal’s Sam Singer had three points but he had three rebounds and Cal assisted on all three quarters of their baskets and things just looked a whole lot better than they did in the game versus Dayton in Maui.

The offense looked pretty good and the defense looked even better in the first half, Irvine missed ten straight and then they hit two out of three and missed eight more and rode in the half so the end of the half shooting hitting two of their last 21 shots and your probably not going to win a lot of basketball games doing that. Solomon is now sporting goggles from getting his eye scratched in the Dayton game and has decided to wear goggles for the rest of the year.

Solomon was not instructed to by doctors he didn’t need to it’s his own choice he doesn’t want to go through that again he doesn’t want to get someone’s finger in his eye. That was a pretty nasty abrasion, Solomon’s eye was swollen shut for two days he could not see and he could not open it. Getting back out on the floor he was rusty and you could tell a week without game action and his timing was not fully there but he set the tone literally from the get go.

Solomon lacked ten inches on Irvine’s center from Senagal, Mamadou Ndiaye who is 7’7 and one of the three or four tallest players ever to play college basketball and Solomon won the opening tip and he did it with climbing athleticism and that is basically how he got Ndiaye to get into foul trouble early in the first half and he picked up his second foul just about 3:50 into the game and sat the rest of the first half. Ndiaye got five and half minutes play in the second half.

Solomon challenged Ndiaye going straight at him early in the game and scored the first five points of the game for Cal and in the second half David Kravish hit Cal’s first ten points and had 12 of the first 16 and he hit six shots in a row and five of them were Ndiaye who was in the game in the second half. So instead of lurking in the backs of too many peoples minds and he is huge and he does have a wing span.

Most big men can get up close to Ndiaye and use their athletic ability and quickness to create some space while he’s trying to back away and make shots and they did. They hit a lot of mid range jumpers.

Michael Duca does commentary on Cal basketball each week for Sportstalk radio