Riverside—Taylor Johns tied his career high with 31 points Tuesday evening, and added 13 rebounds as the UC Riverside Men's Basketball Team erased a 17-point first-half deficit to topple visiting Morgan State 68-63.

The Highlanders appeared to have a bit of a holiday hangover in the first half as the Bears scored the first 11 points of the game. During that same stretch, UC Riverside missed three shots from the field, four more from the free throw line and committed five turnovers.

Johns finally got the Highlanders (7-5) on the board with a dunk with 15:58 to go in the first. He would go on to score 18 of UC Riverside's first 21 points, almost single-handedly keeping the Highlanders in the game.

Morgan State led by as many as 17 points on two occasions in the first, but UCR cut the lead to 13 at the break, 37-24, thanks to a Jaylen Bland three-pointer.

Johns finished the first making eight of 13 shots, but the rest of the Highlanders missed 13 of 15. UC Riverside's effort on the defensive end was more inspired as the Bears made just 37.1 percent of their shots from the field.

Whatever information the coaching staff imparted to the Highlanders in the locker room at halftime did the trick, as UCR scored 16 of the first 23 points of the period to slice the Morgan State (2-12) lead to four, 44-40, with 15:34 on the clock.

The Bears managed to stop the bleeding, but the Highlanders kept chipping away, trailing by two with 10:03 to go, by one with 7:53 remaining, and finally tying the score 74 seconds later on a Steven Thornton free throw.

Two more Thornton free throws with 3:41 to go gave UC Riverside its first lead of the game, and the Highlanders surged ahead for good on an Austin Quick lay up with 134 seconds to go.

Johns scored 13 points after the intermission, but this time he had help from the rest of the squad as Bland scored 13 over the final 20 minutes of play, and Thornton added 12. The Highlanders made 62.5 percent of their shots in the second half while holding the Bears to just 29.2 percent shooting.

The Highlanders ring in the New Year by traveling to Northern Illinois for a Friday, January 2 meeting with the Huskies at 5 pm PT, and to Phoenix, Arizona to take on Grand Canyon on Sunday, January 4 at 3 pm.