UC Irvine men’s basketball team runs past Life Pacific 87-53 and improves mark to 3-0

UC Irvine’s men’s basketball team improved its record to 3-0 with an 87-53 non-conference victory over Life Pacific Monday night at the Bren Events Center.

UC Irvine had 11 players score. The Anteaters  scored 53 of their season-high 87 points off the bench.

UCI was led by Robert Cartwright and Collin Welp, who each had 15 points, a career-high for each player

Jonathan Galloway tied his career-best with a game-high 14 rebounds to go with a career-tying 11 points, also marking the fourth double-double of his career.

“I am happy to win,” said UCI Coach Russell Turner. “It was an emotional turnaround from Friday night’s win over Texas A&M and now we are 3-0 to start the season and that’s a good feeling. I knew we would have the chance to play a lot of guys tonight and I thought they all played well. We will learn from this experience and gear up for Santa Clara on Thursday.”

JC Butler made his debut for UCI tonight, scoring four points

UCI held advantages in rebounds (50-24), blocks (6-1) and steals (12-9), however the Anteaters committed 20 turnovers to the Warriors’ 19

The Anteatgers shot 54.7% (29-of-53) from the floor and held LPC to just 30,4 percent (17-of-56). UCI went 7-of-18 (.389) from three-point range as Max Hazzard and Cartwright had two each from behind the arc

Life Pacific (2-2) was led by Chez Lister, who had a team-best 15 points including two made three-pointers.

NEXT UP: UCI plays at Santa Clara Thursday at 7 p.m.