LOS ANGELES — Juwan Rice dominated off of the bounce, Andrew Johnson made clutch baskets down the stretch and the Occidental men's basketball team started the second half of SCIAC play on the right foot with a 76-72 win over Redlands at Rush Gymnasium on Saturday.

Rice scored a career-high 33 points on 13 of 18 from the field, attacking the basket at will in transition and in the half court. He also added five rebounds, a pair of assists and no turnovers.

"I've never scored 30 points in a game before so to do that is exciting," Rice said. "But more importantly we needed to get this win after dropping a tough one at their place the first time around."

Oxy improves to 5-4 in SCIAC and 9-8 overall with the comeback win. Redlands falls to 2-7 and 5-13.

Johnson, who was named to the Bennettranking.com Studs of the Week team earlier this week, scored 16 of his 22 points in the second half. He finished the game 10 of 15 from the field and 4 of 6 from the foul line. 

Oxy point guard Austin Hawk played maybe his best game of the season without even scoring a point. The sophomore point guard dished out eight assists, had just three turnovers and made key passes to set up Johnson in the low post.

"Austin played some of his best basketball tonight," Oxy head coach Brian Newhall said. "He made excellent choices and got the ball to the right guys at the right time. Most of his best plays won't show up in the box score as assists. There's no stat for knowing who we needed to go to and when, and he did that very well tonight."

Levy added 15 points on 4 of 8 shooting from beyond the 3-point line for the Tigers.

The Tigers came out flat in the first round of conference play when they played at Redlands, losing 85-65, and for the first 29 minutes on Saturday, it looked like Oxy might let the second meeting slip. The Tigers trailed 57-46 with 11:29 left before they finally made their move. Led by Rice and Johnson, they went on a 21-6 run that lasted until the 5-minute mark, putting Oxy up 69-63.

The Bulldogs managed to cut the lead to 75-72 and had the ball with 20 seconds left, but Shawn James turned the ball over and Levy sealed the game with a pair of free throws. 

"I was proud of the way our guys responded after falling behind in the second half," Newhall said. "This is a game we really wanted to win against a physically tough team and we were able to walk away on top."

Marco Kengott led Redlands with 14 points, scoring eight of them on a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Blake O'Brien led the Bulldogs inside game with 13 points as they consistently played through the low post.

Next Game: The Tigers face La Verne on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Rush Gymnasium.