UC Riverside junior Taylor Johns (San Francisco, Calif./Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep) earned his first career Big West Men’s Basketball Player of the Week honor with back-to-back 20-point performances in a pair of wins.
Johns is the first Highlander to garner the Player of the Week award since Phil Martin on Jan. 16, 2012.
A 6-7 forward, Johns scored 15 of his game-high 21 points in the second half to help the Highlanders erase an 11-point deficit on the road against CSU Bakersfield. Johns converted his final bucket with 12 seconds left on the clock for the winning points as UCR eked out a 59-58 victory. He made 9-of-13 floor attempts to go along with seven rebounds, two steals and three blocked shots. UCR had trailed for 19 minutes and 48 seconds in the second period before Johns’ heroics sealed the win.
Johns also posted 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting to spearhead an 88-62 rout of Portland State, which previously had notched road victories against USC and CSUN earlier in the year. His shooting performance helped UCR finish at 64.8% for the game, the third-best field goal percentage in program history. He added five rebounds, a steal and a block to his final stat line.
For the week, Johns shot 73.9% (17-of-23) from the field while averaging 20.5 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks. He ranks sixth in the Big West in scoring, second in rebounding and second in blocked shots.
Others nominated: Brian Bennett (Cal Poly); Stephan Hicks (CSUN); Corey Hawkins (UC Davis); John Ryan (UC Irvine)