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UC Irvine men start fast, take down CSUN to reach Big West tourney final

March 14, 2026

With the most important job still left to be completed, the UC Irvine men’s basketball team put this one to bed early on Friday night.

The top-seeded Anteaters surged to an early double-digit lead against fourth-seeded Cal State Northridge in their Big West Tournament semifinal, and then kept the Matadors mostly at arm’s length in a 93-78 victory at Lee’s Family Forum in Henderon, Nev.

“Our defense and our rebounding wore them down, wore them out,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “We imposed our will on Northridge tonight to get a win.”

UCI (23-10) will try for its third title in its 11th trip to the championship game when it meets either second-seeded Hawaii or third-seeded Cal State Fullerton on Saturday at 7 p.m. PT.

The Anteaters have reached the final six times in the previous 15 seasons under Coach Russell Turner, but they are just 2-4 in those games, most recently losing, 75,-61 to top-seeded UC San Diego in last season’s title game.

UCI then went on to reach the final of the NIT.

“We know we’ve now put ourselves in position to play for all the marbles tomorrow and I’m excited about that,” Turner said.

Derin Saran, who was a regular part of the rotation for the Anteaters as a freshman, transferred to Stanford last season and then came back to Irvine for his junior year, produced 23 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals in one of his best performances.

“We’ve got to play our best basketball in March,” said Saran, who helped UCI win at CSUN with a layup at the final buzzer late last month.

Jurian Dixon scored 15 of his 18 points in the first half to help the Anteaters build the early cushion. Kyle Evans helped UCI dominate the paint with 15 points and eight rebounds, and Andre Henry led the reserves with 12 points as the Anteaters shot 51.6% from the field.

CSUN (20-14) came in averaging a conference-best 41.4 rebounds per game with UCI right behind at 40.4, but it was the Anteaters who finished with a 44-26 advantage on the boards.

“Irvine’s playing good,” CSUN coach Andy Newman said. “That was an incredible performance by them.”

Josiah Davis, the Big West Player of the Year, had 26 points and eight assists, Joshua O’Garro scored 22 points and James Evans Jr. scored 17 off the bench for the Matadors, but they didn’t get much help elsewhere.

Larry Hughes II scored a career-high 34 points to help the Matadors beat fifth-seeded UCSD, 80-70, in the quarterfinals, but did not score until making two free throws with just under four minutes remaining and those were his only points of the game.

“He’s an outstanding player,” Turner said. “He had his career night last night, and I think he played 40 minutes in that game. And so we made it hard for him. We often go into a game trying to figure out how we can make the other team’s highest scorer have a hard night. Tonight, we did that to Hughes.”

Mahmoud Fofana, who came in averaging 11.1 points and eight rebounds for the Matadors, was limited to six points and four rebounds in 31 minutes.

The Anteaters sprinted to a 15-2 lead and stretched the advantage to as many as 16 points before taking a 49-37 lead into the break.

“I thought, defensively, we were OK in the first half, and they made some incredible shots,” Newman said. “For a team to come out on night one with no butterflies at all, shooting here for the first night, to do it like they did, they’re playing at a really high level right now.”

Saran hit a 3-pointer on the first possession of the second half to stretch the lead to 15.

The Matadors got back within single digits at 62-54 on a drive by O’Garro with 13:25 left, and then cut it to six when Davis scored off a turnover, but Jovan Jester Jr. answered with five straight points to put UCI back ahead by double digits at 67-56 with 11:51 left and CSUN couldn’t get back within seven.

The Matadors, playing in the program’s first tournament semifinal since 2014, missed nine of their first 10 field-goal attempts while falling behind by 13 points less than six minutes into the game.

CSUN managed to cut the deficit to seven on three occasions, but Saran sank one of UCI’s seven 3-pointers in the first half to put the Matadors back down by double digits for the rest of the first half at 32-20.

Saran stretched the lead to 14 with another 3-pointer, and Henry provided the biggest lead of the first half at 49-33 when he buried a 3-pointer with 1:31 left.

UCI shot 58.1% from the field in the first half, getting 13 points apiece from Dixon and Saran.

“Excited for my team tonight,” Turner said. “I thought we did tonight what we’ve done consistently throughout most of the year. We controlled the game on the defensive end with our rebounding, with our team balance and that was the difference.”

Orange County Register

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UC Irvine men start fast, take down CSUN to reach Big West tourney final

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