After winning their last three conference games, the University of California, Riverside (UCR) men’s basketball team ascended to the no. 3 seed heading into the Big West Championship. Expectations were high for head coach Mike Magpayo and the Highlanders.
Before the tournament, redshirt sophomore guard Barrington Hargress earned All-Big West First Team honors in a season that saw him set the UCR single-season scoring record.
Magpayo had plenty of praise for his star point guard’s skills, but also his character. He noted, “[Hargress has] been special. He’s a great human, first of all, a really good leader. One of the things that I always tell people is, watch how he’s so unselfish and he’s about his teammates.”
Redshirt junior guard Isaiah Moses also picked up his second straight All-Big West Honorable Mention as the Highlanders rode a three-game win streak into Henderson, Nev.
Their opponent, California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) were also getting hot at the right time. After upsetting no. 6 seed UC Davis in the first round the day before, the win made it four in a row for the Mustangs.
All-Big West Honorable Mention Owen Koonce is their tallest starter, standing at 6’ 5”. The Mustangs compensate for their size disadvantage by playing fast and shooting plenty of three-pointers. They can score in a hurry and displayed that with their 48-point second half against the Aggies.
Although, the Highlanders already knew what they were in for as the two teams split their season series. Their previous meeting was a comeback 112-100 overtime victory for the Mustangs. A disappointing result for the Highlanders considering they led by seven with under two minutes to go in the second half.
The Highlanders advanced straight to the quarterfinals off a bye, but the Mustangs didn’t look tired from the previous day’s horse race against the Aggies. Cal Poly jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the opening minutes.
A triple from Hargress calmed the nerves a little bit, but the Highlanders never looked settled. They failed to attack the basket against the smaller Mustangs. Meanwhile, Cal Poly was outshooting UCR from behind the arc and outhustling them for rebounds.
Moses, who finished with a season-high 30 points, kept the Highlanders within arms reach for most of this one. He traded three-pointers with freshman guard Peter Bandelj in the first half. Then, fellow Mustangs freshman guard Cayden Ward knocked down three-straight triples of his own. Moses would follow up Ward’s efforts with a series of acrobatic layups, but it would prove to be too little too late.
The Mustangs dominated from start to finish, running away with a 96-83 win. The gut-wrenching loss killed UCR’s hopes of the program’s first potential Big West Championship. It wasn’t the fairytale ending they were looking for, but the Highlanders can still look back on their 2024-25 season with pride.
After the game, Magpayo recalled some of his favorite memories of the season: “The big shot by Nate Pickens versus Davis and that little streak where we beat UC San Diego and UC Irvine, the top two teams in our league. There’s so many. When you have a 21-win season, there’s a lot of them.”
However, the loss to Cal Poly wouldn’t end UCR’s season. The Highlanders accepted an invitation from the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). This marked the program’s first appearance at the NIT.
They would lose to Santa Clara University 101-62 in the first round, but it was still a huge milestone for UCR men’s basketball to make it that far.
Magpayo reflected, “We’ve done a really good job with our athletic director [Wesley Mallete], and building this thing over the last five years, and I’m really proud of it … I think everyone will look back and just [know] that they have a basketball team and program they can be really proud of. That’s a 21-win season two of the last three years … All the student-athletes, they tell me all the time. It’s just very fulfilling and satisfying when you build something brick by brick. So that’ll be the future. Just continue to build this thing brick by brick, and hopefully one of these days walk out of here with a championship.”
