ANNAPOLIS, Md. – UC San Diego freshman
Roddie Anderson III scored a career-high 17 points and dished out six assists and
Bryce Pope scored 18 points after halftime, but host Navy held off the Tritons for a 78-69 overtime victory at Alumni Hall on Friday night. The Midshipmen (3-1) were led by 19 from Daniel Deaver in the win.
UC San Diego committed a season-high 18 turnovers and dropped to 1-3 with the setback.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Anderson got the Tritons off to a fast start. The freshman buried a three in the game's opening moments and added a pull-up jumper shortly thereafter. Two buckets from
Emmanuel Tshimanga off the bench gave UC San Diego an early 9-8 lead.
Trailing 11-9, the Tritons reeled off a 7-0 run over a 2:29 stretch. UC San Diego went in front, 16-11, with 11:19 left in the first. Anderson and
J'Raan Brooks converted driving layups with a three from
Francis Nwaokorie in between.
Navy responded, running off a 10-0 run of its own to take a 21-16 lead with 4:22 to play in the first, where the Tritons called timeout. During the spurt, UC San Diego missed eight consecutive shots. The Tritons went more than 10 minutes without a field goal until Tshimanga's layup with just over 1:00 left in the half.
With time winding down UC San Diego's
Jace Roquemore kicked it out to
Jake Kosakowski whose 25-footer banked in off the glass as time expired. The officials ruled the shot was good but changed the call upon video review. The Tritons trailed 28-23 at the half.
Tshimanga blocked a couple of shots in the first half, adding six points and four rebounds over nine minutes. Anderson scored seven to lead the Tritons, with Nwaokorie adding five.
Neither team shot the ball particularly well. UC San Diego connected on 9-of-25 shots (36%) with Navy hitting 11-of-30 (37%). The Tritons held a slim 19-18 rebound advantage.
The second half began the same way as the first: with Anderson burying a three-pointer.
Kosakowski knocked down a three-ball of his own – this one counted, drawing the Tritons to within one at 30-29 with 17:30 to play. Navy went on a quick 6-0 spurt over a 42 second span, costing UC San Diego a pair of timeouts as the deficit grew to 36-29 at the 16:29 mark.
The Tritons responded and took the lead on a three from
Bryce Pope with 12:35 left. Pope's triple was part of an 8-0 Tritons run.
UC San Diego was up 52-48 but back-to-back threes from Navy's Christian Jones put the Midshipmen on top, 54-52, with four minutes to play. With the score knotted at 58, each team had a final look in the waning half minute, but neither team converted and the game moved to overtime.
In the extra session, Navy built a quick 67-60 lead. But the Tritons battled back and drew to within one thanks to back-to-back three-pointers from Pope and
J'Raan Brooks.
The Mids hit free throws down the stretch – they were 7-for-7 in overtime – on the way to the win. All eight of the Tritons' overtime field goal attempts came from beyond the arc (3-for-8).
QUOTABLE
"I thought we fought hard to give ourselves a chance to win," said UC San Diego head coach
Eric Olen. "Ultimately there were too many self-inflicted wounds. 18 turnovers and [allowing] 18 offensive rebounds is not a recipe for success for us. We need to clean that up to put ourselves in a better position moving forward."
TRITON TIDBITS
- Friday's game was the first of four straight in the Eastern Time Zone for the Tritons, and the program's first-ever in the state of Maryland.
- Tshimanga's nine rebounds and five blocks are a new career high.
- This was UC San Diego's first overtime game since the Tritons defeated defending Big West champ UC Santa Barbara, 85-83, in La Jolla on Dec. 30, 2021.
- UC San Diego is now 2-1 in overtime games at the Division I level.
UP NEXT
The Tritons face Youngstown State on Saturday at Navy's Alumni Hall with a 3 p.m. PST tip-off. There will be no broadcast, but live stats will be available on UCSDTritons.com.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
