GETTING INSIDE

Expectations have risen to unseen levels since coach Jim Wooldridge arrived at UC Riverside in 2007. The Highlanders are coming off their first winning season at the Division I level and looking for more in the third season of the Wooldridge era.

The Highlanders are one of several teams expected to contend for the Big West Conference championship. They return three starters and 10 letter winners from a team that went 17-13 overall and 8-8 to tie for fourth

in the Big West last season. The eight Big West wins represented a program record.

The top returning player is junior Kyle Austin, a 6-7 forward who emerged as one of the Big West’s best last season after transferring from USC. Austin became the first UC Riverside player ever to earn first-team All-Big West honors after averaging 16.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.

He was second in the Big West in scoring and eighth in rebounding. A number of publications have named Austin the preseason Player of the Year in the Big West Conference.

“He’s a guy that does a lot of things on the floor,” Wooldridge said. “He’s our hardest-working player, he’s our most dedicated player, and because of that he influences others.

“One of the best things about this young man is that he brings an attitude to our team that we sorely needed as we built this program and moved forward. You know the old adage, that players change programs? Well, I can’t think of a player I’ve ever been around that changed the way a program sees itself and handles itself more than Kyle Austin.”

Another key returnee is senior point guard Javon Borum, assuming he’s able to play. Borum started 29 games last season. He was second on the team in scoring at 9.7 points per game, and led the team with 43 3-point goals and 43 steals.

When asked if the status of any of his players for the upcoming season was in doubt, Wooldridge said “that’s still up in the air” for Borum, who had surgery over the summer to remove a bone spur from the heel of his foot. Wooldridge wouldn’t elaborate, but during the team’s Midnight Madness festivities, Borum told the Riverside Press-Enterprise he has not played in months.

“Right now I’m just trying to get healthy,” Borum said, adding he is not sure he’ll be able to play this season. “I should know within the next month or two. I haven’t even started running yet.”

It is unclear what the Highlanders will do at point guard if Borum is forced to sit this season, but Wooldridge has brought in reinforcements on the wings. He expects to start Victor Valley Community College transfer Dwight Gordon at shooting guard and Gonzaga transfer Larry Gurganious at small forward.

Gurganious, a 6-5 senior, was an all-state selection and the 11th-ranked guard on the West Coast at St. Mary’s High School in Oakland, Calif. He averaged 3.3 points and 2.6 rebounds in 11.2 minutes per game as a sophomore at Gonzaga in 2007-08.

Gordon, a 6-2 junior, was a two-time all-conference honoree who averaged 21.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists as a sophomore at Victor Valley. He shot 57 percent from the field and 36 percent from 3-point range. In his final game for Victor Valley, Gordon scored 41 points on 14-of-18 shooting, including 5-of-6 from 3-point range.

“I think we’ve improved with the new players, and obviously we have a lot of guys back from a year ago,” Wooldridge said. “We expect our team to improve, but I think our league has improved as well, and because of that I think it’s going to be a tight race among a lot of us to see who can win the league.”

NOTES, QUOTES

• Junior F Kyle Austin played a starring role in the Highlanders’ Midnight Madness festivities. According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Austin won the slam dunk contest with a soaring one-handed jam off a high bounce pass near the free-throw line. Austin also donned a red leather jacket during the team’s performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

• Opponents averaged just 60.6 points per game against the Highlanders last season, the 27th-lowest total in the nation.

• Coach Jim Wooldridge marvels at the athleticism and versatility of senior Larry Gurganious, who he says could see time at small forward and power forward this season.

“If there’s a better athlete in this league, I’d like to see him, because this young man is one of the best I’ve been around,” Wooldridge said. “He can guard different players on the floor. He can play multiple positions. We’ve tried to improve our athletic ability, and (Gurganious) by himself improves our athletic ability tenfold.”

• Coach Jim Wooldridge and UC Riverside women’s coach John Margaritis received the “Kitchen Disaster” award for their efforts in the cooking competition on Big West media day at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim. They received an Easy Bake Oven, two cookbooks and two fire extinguishers.

Wooldridge challenged the judging panel’s assessment of their culinary skills, pointedly questioning the integrity of the competition. “I’m stunned. Absolutely stunned,” he joked. “We should have caught on early that something was amiss when they switched out one of the members of the panel after John and I went through the judging process.

“But never in a million years would I have imagined something like this occurring with the Big West Conference commissioner standing right there in the room. I am calling for a full and impartial investigation on the part of the NCAA to get to the bottom of this travesty.”

Last Year:   17-13 overall, 8-8 in the Big West.

Head Coach:   Jim Wooldridge (career 338-271); 3rd year at UC Riverside (26-34).

Quote To Note:   “There are a lot of teams in this league that I think are pretty equal to one another, so it’s going to be a season where a break here or a break there is going to determine whether you finish in the upper half or the lower half, or whether you win the league or don’t win the league. It’s going to be that close, and I think we’ll be right there.”

STRATEGY AND PERSONNEL

Scouting The Newcomers:   Gonzaga transfer Larry Gurganious is a readymade starter at small forward. There is no question that he will have an impact for UC Riverside, and could provide a talent infusion similar to what junior F Kyle Austin supplied last season.

The bigger question is at shooting guard, where Victor Valley transfer Dwight Gordon may start over returnees Sean Cunningham and Jalonni Diggs.

Cunningham averaged 5.0 points on 31.2-percent shooting from the field and 24.4-percent shooting from 3-point range last season. Diggs averaged 3.0 points on 39.5-percent shooting from the field and 33.3-percent shooting from 3-point range.

Coach Jim Wooldridge thinks he can get more production from Gordon, who averaged 21.8 points, 8.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists as a sophomore at Victor Valley.

“He’s very athletic, and we need him to score the ball,” Wooldridge said. “He’s a ‘2’ guard, and we need him to be able to add a scoring dimension to our team. We have some returning players who have played minutes at the ‘2,’ but we really need more production there, and we think (Gordon) can give it to us.”

Key Early-season Games:   The Highlanders will visit New Mexico on Nov. 14, host San Diego on Dec. 4 and travel to San Diego State on Dec. 29.

All will be good barometer games, but no game on the non-conference schedule gives the Highlanders a greater opportunity to gain attention than Nov. 17 at USC. The emotions will be running high for junior F Kyle Austin, who played for USC as a freshman, and a win over the Trojans would alert all of Southern California to the fact that something has changed in Riverside.

Program Direction:   The Highlanders have made remarkable progress in just two seasons under coach Jim Wooldridge.

They won one game in 2006-07, the season before Wooldridge arrived. They won nine games in Wooldridge’s first season and 17 games last season, a dramatic improvement that has not gone unnoticed around the Big West Conference.

Whether Wooldridge and his staff can sustain the early momentum in the long run remains to be seen, but there appears to be enough talent in place to keep the Highlanders in contention for the Big West title this year and next.

Probable Starting Lineup:   PG Javon Borum, SG Dwight Gordon, SF Larry Gurganious, PF Kyle Austin, C Bryson Hampton.

Roster Report:  

• Fox Sports named G Javon Borum one of the top 50 shooters in the nation. Borum, who shot 42.6 percent from 3-point range last season, made the list at No. 46. Coach Jim Wooldridge was quoted as saying: “He’s a very confident kid and with his feet set, is very dangerous. He wants to take the big shot, and we expect him to shoot it even better this year.”

• The Highlanders have good balance in terms of experienced players who will play prominent roles this season and youngsters who will lead them into the future. The roster includes seven seniors, three juniors, two sophomores and five freshmen.

• The Highlanders reportedly have received a verbal commitment from Derrell Swanson, a 6-2 shooting guard from Lake Elsinore, Calif. Scouts Inc. noted that Swanson has a “well-built Division I frame with long arms,” “nice bounce” and perimeter skills that “are beginning to blossom.”