What describes UC Riverside basketball?
Taylor Johns: “Confident. Underdog. Resilient.”
Jaylen Bland: “United. Resilient. Overlooked.”
What does R-Side mean to you?
JB: “R-Side is not just about our team, our program, it’s about athletics. It’s moreso about the community and Riverside as a whole and how they can come out and support us as we try to represent Riverside well. It’s about community and we’re included in the community and the university.
TJ: “I think R-Side shows the growth. We’ve been doing it since my freshman year, just the growth, how much the growth of the program goes. It’s the players, the student-population, the teachers, the whole community. Everybody rallying behind us. Whose side? R-Side. It’s all of us, all of us together.”
How special is it to you to be a part of that community?
JB: “It’s special because it gives us a chance to make it better and improve upon it in certain aspects. We just want to help build, and it’s already moving at a high rate so we just want to continue to make it a better place.”
TJ: “I’m just blessed to be a part of it. They took us in like family and we came to try to help build it and that’s what we did. We want to see it grow for years to come.”
Jaylen, why is Riverside lucky to have Taylor?
JB: “He works extremely hard and has a great work-ethic. He’s a great guy. He’s vocal, he’s loud, he’s a leader and he leads by example. It’s great to have a player like that who’s very aggressive. You know he’s not backing down from anything so if you’re going to war, you want a guy like him on your team. Riverside’s going to war, and it’s good to have some soldiers.”
Taylor, why is Riverside lucky to have Jaylen?
TJ: “He’s a great person, he comes from a good family. He’s a real good basketball player, breaking records already. This year, there’s more to come. He’s a leader, very vocal. When I wasn’t playing he really stepped up and showed that just because I was down, doesn’t mean the team can stop and that’s great to have. He’s a good dude.”
As seniors, what do you want to see happen before you graduate?
JB and TJ: “A championship.”
Do you have something to prove?
JB: “We definitely have something to prove. People think we’re the same-old Riverside, and we’re not. We’re a good team, we’re just still trying to put it together. We have a lot of new guys, but tomorrow we’re just going to come out and do what we always do, play hard and try to execute. Try to get a win, finish the game out.
TJ: “I think we have something to prove. Dropping 0-2 in conference, we weren’t planning on that, but I think that’s what makes the good teams, good. You have a little bit of adversity, so what are you going to do about it? We lost to Fullerton, we lost to Irvine, we can either hang our heads, but we can’t get those back. We can come out and make a statement.”
JB: “It’s still early, anything can happen.”
Story by Olivia Phelps (@OliviaGPhelps).