After collecting week-night wins vs. Radford and Sacred Heart as part of the 13th annual Continental Tires Las Vegas Classic, the Broncos will continue play in the Classic as they travel to Las Vegas for the semi-finals and finals. The Broncos are set to play UNLV at 7:30 pm on Dec. 22 in the Orleans Arena, the same site as the WCC Championship in March. The Broncos will play either Mississippi State or South Florida the next night. If the Broncos win, they will play at 7:30 pm. on Dec. 23. If they lose, they will play in the 5 pm game the same night. Both games on Dec. 23 will be televised on the CBS Sports Network.
Santa Clara is 6-5 this season. The Broncos won three games in five days after final exams, including a 70-61 victory over Sacred Heart on Dec. 18. Brandon Clark led the way with 30 points, five asssits and five rebounds. Evan Roquemore chipped in 17 points and John McArthur tied a career-high with 12 boards (vs. Houston Baptist, Dec 21, 2011).
Clark became the 16th Bronco to record multiple 30-point scoring games and the 13th to do it in one season when he netted a game-high 30 in a win over SHU. He hit 9 of 16 FGs and tied his career-best with 5 3-pointers in 9 attempts. Clark set a career-best with 32 points vs. N.D. State on Nov. 29. Kevin Foster, the school's career points leader, holds the record with 8 30-point games while Dennis Awtrey holds the mark for most 30-point games in a season with 5 during the 1968-69 season. Only three players, Foster (Mar. 25 and 27, 2013), Kurt Rambis (Jan. 4 and 5, 1980) and Awtrey (Mar. 1 and 7, 1969) were able to score 30 or more in back to back games.
Robert Garrett is listed as day to day with an injury suffered La Sierra game on Dec. 14.
UNLV is 5-4 entering its game with Sacred Heart on Dec. 20. They are led by Dave Rice, a UNLV alum who is in third season after spending time as an assistant at BYU.
KLIV 1590 AM
The UNLV-Santa Clara game will be broadcast live on KLIV 1590 AM. Anthony Passarelli is in his seventh season as the Broncos' play-by-play announcer.
Our History
UNLV leads the all-time series 9-7 with the Broncos. Santa Clara held the series edge, 7-6, when both were members of the West Coast Athletic Conference in the early 70s. UNLV has won six of the last seven vs. the Broncos after SCU won four straight dating back to 1971-72.
SCU took No. 21 UNLV down to the wire in their last meeting on Dec. 5, 2009, but the Running Rebel's hit two free throws in the final seconds to win 66-63. Marc Trasolini led the Broncos with 22 points, 11 coming from the free throw line. SCU turned the ball over 21 times while the Rebs turned it over nine times.
Us
The Broncos have three players averaging double figures: Brandon Clark leads the team with 16.4 ppg and is second with 3.82 apg. Clark scored 21+ points in four straight games (San Jose St. - North Dakota St.). Leading the team at the free throw line, he has helped his scoring average by making 47 of 56 free throws (83.9 percent). Jared Brownridge is second with 14.5 ppg. Evan Roquemore scores 12.0 ppg and leads the team with 3.88 apg.
Brownridge leads the Broncos in threes made (32) and attempted (73). He is already tied with Clark at No. 10 on the Bronco freshman list with the 32 makes. The school record was set by Kevin Foster in 2008-09 when he crushed 85. Jerry Brown, who came off the bench for the first four games, has started the last seven games and leads the team with 6.5 rpg. Yannick Atanga is second with 5.5 rpg.
2013
After spending a hard week during finals, Santa Clara got the rust off its game on Dec. 14 with a 97-61 over La Sierra and then defeated Radford 74-62 on Dec. 16. Santa Clara won its third game in five days on Dec. 18 with a 70-61 victory over Sacred Heart. Before the Bronco's 60-42 win at Bakersfield on Dec. 5 and their 64-53 loss at Cal Poly on Dec. 7, Santa Clara lost 91-85 in the 47th annual Cable Car Classic to North Dakota State, the eventual champion, on Nov. 29. The next night, Santa Clara's comeback story wasn't finished successfully vs. Rice. Taking the lead with 6.7 second left, after being down by as many as 12 in the second half, Santa Clara couldn't stop a slashing Keith Washington from driving to the basket for a bucket and lost 67-66. Brandon Clark was named to the Cable Car Classic All-Tournament team after scoring 47 points in two games.
The Broncos started the year by defeating Bethesda on Nov. 8, 84-39, and then defeated cross-town rival San Jose State, 89-77, on Nov. 12. They dropped an 86-73 game at Cal State Fullerton on Nov. 17 and fell 84-69 at Notre Dame on Nov. 22.
Distancing Himself
With a dandy dish to Jared Brownridge in the first half, Evan Roquemore broke the Bronco career assists record vs. Radford on Dec. 16. Roquemore now has 524 career assists, topping Brian Jones from 1996-2001, who had 517. Roquemore needs 5 to enter the WCC top 10. Portland's Adam Quick (00-04) currently holds down the 10th spot with 529 and Gonzaga's John Stockton sits at No. 9 with 554.
After missing an assist for the first time in his career at Cal Poly (111 games), Roquemore dished out six vs. La Sierra and then five vs. Radford. Last season Roquemore set the single season assists record with 196, topping John Woolery (190, 1993-94).
Roquemore became just the third player in school history to score 1,400+ points and collect 500+ assists when he scored 17 points on Dec. 18. The other two were Brian Jones (1,722 points, 517 assists, 1996-01) and two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash (1,689 points, 510 assists, 1992-96). Nash was named the WCC Player of the Year in 1995 and '96 and Jones was a three-time All-WCC First Team honoree.
Roquemore has now scored an assist in 113 of 114 career games. Looking back, Jones missed an assist in just three games in his career: Dec. 21, 1996 at Pacific, Jan. 22, 1997 at USF; and March 4, 2000 vs. USF. He only had one game his final three years without an assist (the USF game in 2000). Nash collected eight games his freshman year with no assists, but the final three years of his career he had at least one assist in every game he played in during his Bronco career.
Two Weeks Better
John McArthur had been sidelined for almost two weeks and missed games with an injury suffered in practice on Dec. 4. He bounced off the bench vs. Sacred Heart at 10:01 in the first half and immediately gave the Broncos the shot in the arm they needed. McArthur finished the game by tying a career-high with 12 rebounds (12 at Houston Baptist, Dec. 21, 2011). McArthur added seven points, three assists, a block and a steal. The three assists also tied a career-high (3, at Pepperdine, Jan. 28, 2012).
"I am really proud of John's effort," said head coach Kerry Keating. "I am hoping this gets him back to where he was at the beginning of the year. Being out for two weeks, I didn't expect him to play this much tonight. I'm really happy with his performance."
Shooters
Of those with at least 30 attempts, Jerry Brown is Santa Clara's top field goal percentage shooter at 60.0 percent. Right behind him is point guard Jalen Richard, who shoots at a 57.7 percent clip. Richard prefers to shoot inside the arc as he is 13 of 19 inside the three point line (68.4 percent) and 2 of 7 beyond the arc (28.6 percent).
Brandon Clark, Julian Clarke and Jared Brownridge are proving to be the Broncos best options from the three point line. Clark is 21 of 50 (42.0 percent), Clark is 8 of 17 (47.1 percent) and Brownridge is 32 of 73 (43.8 percent).
SCU is also proving to be productive when dishing the ball off as three Broncos collect 3.1+ apg. Evan Roquemore leads the team with 3.9 apg, Clark is second at 3.8 apg and Brownridge is third at 3.1 apg.
Andrew Again!
With John McArthur and Robert Garrett both sidelined with injuries vs. Radford, junior walk-on Andrew Papenfus stepped up to the plate and had a career night. He made his first three pointer and finished with two rebounds, an assist and a steal in 12 minutes. All were career highs.
He came back and shined again vs. Sacred Heart, playing 11 minutes with two rebounds, a field goal and a block, his first ever.
More To Come
Already the school record in both career assists and single season assists, Evan Roquemore has a chance to break four more Bronco career records this year. Entering the UNLV game he is No. 3 in free throws made and No. 5 in minutes played. He is also on pace to break the records for games started (98) and games played (114). The games started career record was set last year by Kevin Foster (125) and the games played record was broken last year by Raymond Cowels III and Marc Trasolini (137).
With 434 career free throws made, Roquemore needs to make 37 free throws to break the school record of 470 set by Ken Sears in 1951-55.
The team's lone 1,000+ career point scorer, Roquemore has started the past six games and is averaging 12.0 ppg this year. Roquemore sits at No. 14 with 1,412 career points. He needs to score 174 points to pass No. 10 Ken Sears (1,586 points, 1951-55) and 26 points to pass No. 13 Bud Odgen (1,437, 1966-69).
Last year's Bronco team was the first team in West Coast Conference history to feature four 1,000 point career scorers. Along with Roquemore, the team had seniors Kevin Foster (No. 1, 2,423 points), Marc Trasolini (No. 5, 1,699 points) and Raymond Cowels III (No. 26, 1,090 points).
Roquemore is tied with No. 9 in career starts (98) with Ben Dowdell (2007-11). He needs to play in three more games to jump in to the top 10 for games played (114). He is No. 5 in career minutes played at 3,644. Foster also holds the record for minutes played with 4,212.
Bullish
Jared Brownridge proved there was not rust in his game after finals on Dec. 14 vs. La Sierra when he collected seven three pointers on a night where he shot 8 of 15 from the field with a game-high seven assists. The seven threes by Brownridge broke the Bronco freshman record set by Steve Nash back in 1993 (6 vs. CS Stanislaus, 1-5-93). Brandon Rohe (6, vs. Mississippi State Valley, 12-27-02) and Calvin Johnson (6, vs. Cal Poly, 12-10-05). It is the most threes hit by a Bronco since WCC record holder Kevin Foster scored nine vs. Air Force on March 18, 2011.
Brownridge has scored 20+ points in four games in his 11-game college career thus far, including six games with 3+ threes made. Much of his scoring has been beyond the arc as Brownridge has collected 5+ threes three times in his first 11 games as a freshman. Foster accomplished this feat three times in his 33-game rookie season (5 vs. Arizona, Nov. 25, 2008; at Saint Mary's, Jan. 9, 2009; and at LMU, Feb. 14, 2009). All told, Foster scored seven threes twice, eight threes twice and nine threes once (the school record for a single game).
Not Here
Yannick Atanga is climbing up some records charts himself as he is No. 6 with 76 career blocks. He needs 18 blocks to pass No. 5 Kurt Rambis (93, 1976-80). Robert Garrett is No. 8 with 68 career blocks. Atanga has 14 blocks this year to lead the team. Jerry Brown is second on the team with 12 blocks and Nate Kratch follows behind with 10, including four vs. Cal Poly.