Cal Poly (5-18, 1-9) vs. UC Irvine (22-5, 10-1)
Bren Events Center, Irvine, California; Thursday, 10 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UC Irvine looks for its ninth straight conference win against Cal Poly. UC Irvine's last Big West loss came against the Long Beach State 49ers 80-70 on Jan. 16. Cal Poly came up short in a 75-54 game at Hawaii on Thursday.
PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE: Senior leadership could play a big role in this game's outcome. Max Hazzard, Jonathan Galloway and Elston Jones have combined to score 34 percent of UC Irvine's points this season and 37 percent of the team's points over its last five games. For Cal Poly, Donovan Fields, Marcellus Garrick and Kuba Niziol have collectively scored 51 percent of the team's points this season, including 53 percent of all Mustangs points over their last five.
DOMINANT DONOVAN: Fields has connected on 29.4 percent of the 109 3-pointers he's attempted and has made 5 of 22 over the last five games. He's also converted 80 percent of his free throws this season.
WINLESS WHEN: Cal Poly is 0-14 when scoring fewer than 67 points and 5-4 when scoring at least 67.
UNDEFEATED WHEN: UC Irvine is a sterling 18-0 when its defense holds opponents to a field goal percentage of 41 percent or less. The Anteaters are 4-5 when allowing opponents to shoot any better than that.
TOUGH DEFENSE: UC Irvine has held opposing teams to 38.4 percent shooting from the field this year, the lowest percentage among all Division I teams.
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This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com
