The Green Bay Phoenix men’s basketball team traveled west, out to Southern California, for a matchup against the UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos of the Big West Conference.
Green Bay got early threes from Anthony Roy and Preston Ruedinger to keep pace with the Gauchos early on, followed by a Jeremiah Johnson dunk and a pair of made free throws to grab an early lead. Johnson continued his offensive outburst with a made three, and two of Green Bay’s next three baskets to propel the Phoenix. Green Bay would build the lead as high as 10, before cooling off to go into halftime with a 31-27 lead.
Anthony Roy and Foster Wonders opened the half with a make each, with Wonders hitting from deep to ballon the lead back up to nine. The Gauchos would come storming back and used a Phoenix dry spell to grab the lead back, as Green Bay was held scoreless for 5:10 of gametime, mounting a 14-0 run over that time. UC Santa Barbara would build the lead as high as 19 through the half, which Green Bay was able to knock down to 11 before the Gauchos would go onto win 83-66.
The Phoenix were led by Jeremiah Johnson’s career high 18 points, topping his previous high of 15, which came earlier in his freshman campaign in a win against Western Illinois. Green Bay also got a season high of 13 from Preston Ruedinger and 11 from the nation’s leading scorer, Anthony Roy. More concerning, however, may be that Roy only played 21 minutes, being forced to exit in the second half with an apparent lower body injury. As pointed out by Phear the Phoenix on X, Roy left the game when Green Bay trailed 43-42 in the early parts of the 2nd half.
With or without Roy, Green Bay looks to get back in the win column in its next time out, which will be a day game on Wednesday, December 18th, at 11 am CT, as the Phoenix host division 3 opponent Michigan Tech.
