Junior Derick Flowers (Los Angeles, Calif./Pacific Hills School) led UC Irvine to a conference opening victory against Cal State Northridge with a career-best scoring effort and claimed Big West Men's Basketball Player of the Week honors.

Flowers, whose previous career high was nine points, tallied 21 points against the Matadors in the 71-62 road win.

He collected his 21 points on 6 of 12 shooting overall, including 4 of 5 from three-point range.  Flowers also sank all but one of his six free throw attempts.  The 6-0 guard also contributed three rebounds, three assists and a steal as the Anteaters won on the road for the first time in seven tries this season.

Flowers was instrumental in helping UCI pull away late in the game.  After Northridge had whittled UCI's lead to 55-52, Flowers drained a three during a 7-0 run by the Anteaters and he later canned 3 of 4 free throws in the final 52 seconds to thwart any further notion of a Matador comeback.

After not starting a game in his first two seasons with the program, Flowers has emerged as a key player for the Anteaters.  He has started five games in 2011-12, including each of the last four.
 
Others nominated:  Amaurys Fermin (Cal Poly); Kwame Vaughn (Cal State Fullerton); Kareem Nitoto (UC Riverside)