Basketball success might not save UC Riverside athletics

As UC Riverside finishes the best season in its Division I men’s basketball history, the Highlanders should be reveling in this moment and using it as a springboard to future success.

But hanging in the background is the potential elimination of the entire athletics program.

“I just can’t imagine a relevant university without athletics,” coach Mike Magpayo said. “So I’ve got to put a lot of faith that it’s going to get done and be fine. I don’t know, though.”

Magpayo said he believed his team’s success has created momentum to save athletics.

UC Riverside went 13-7 during this season, the .650 winning percentage its best Division I mark. That included a 57-42 victory over Washington on Dec. 1 at T-Mobile Arena. The Highlanders’ eight Big West wins tied the 2008-09 record, and this season it was accomplished in four fewer games.

And their No. 3 seed in the conference tournament is a program best. The Highlanders defeated No. 6 seed Hawaii 62-52 on Thursday night in the quarterfinals at Michelob Ultra Arena in Mandalay Bay. They play UC Irvine at 9 p.m. Friday.

The future of the Highlanders’ athletic program came into question in August when university officials listed elimination as a possibility.

An athletic department advisory committee that includes interim athletic director Wes Mallette was formed to evaluate whether it was financially feasible to keep athletics. Mallette said the study compares UC Riverside to other programs, and he was hopeful that athletics would not only survive, but would benefit from this examination.

A report and recommendation likely will be given to chancellor Kim Wilcox this month.

“I do want to be really, really clear this is not adversarial,” Mallette said. “This is not athletics against the campus. This is about a massive budget crisis. A lot of that has been caused because of the economic shutdown. This is a situation right now where we are working together to figure it out.”

Mallette conceded he is an “eternal optimist,” but the question of whether athletics will survive rests with Wilcox.

“I am proud of the way our university and athletics leadership continue to work together to solve this incredibly difficult issue,” Wilcox said in a statement to the Review-Journal. “The challenge we are facing here is bigger than UC Riverside and its athletics department. It speaks to the larger issue of how mid-major Division I programs around the country that are resource challenged can successfully run a financially, operationally and competitively sustainable athletics program.”

Contact reporter Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter.