Weber State basketball team faces first road trip of season

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Traveling with the ball is never a good thing on the basketball court.

But the Weber State men's basketball team will get an opportunity to do plenty of it — traveling, that is — in the next couple of weeks as the Wildcats face the first of three-straight road games beginning Thursday night at San Jose State.

Weber State comes into Thursday's contest on the heels of a 58-point rout — the second-largest margin of victory in school history — over Arizona Christian in last Friday's season-opener.

The Wildcats had seven players score in double figures in that one, but Thursday's matchup will be decidedly more difficult, even though the Spartans are off to an 0-2 start this season.

Davion Berry, a 6-foot-4 junior forward from Oakland, Calif. — the same Northern-California city that brought the Wildcats’ current NBA Rookie of the Year candidate Damian Lillard — had 17 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals in their season-opening win. And freshman big man Joel Bolomboy had a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds in his collegiate debut.

Senior forward Frank Otis, also from Oakland, Calif., contributed 13 points and 10 boards of his own.

James Kinney leads San Jose State with an average of 21 points and 7.5 rebounds per game, and D.J. Brown adds 16 ppg for the Spartans, who dropped a 91-89 double-overtime duel to the Wildcats last December in Ogden. Lillard poured in a career-high 41 points for the 'Cats in that game.

After Thursday's game, Weber State will have nine days off until its next game on Nov. 24 in Logan against in-state rival Utah State.

EMAIL: rhollis@desnews.com