UTAH VALLEY HOSTS CSUN ON TUESDAY NIGHT IN CBI FIRST ROUND
Utah Valley has accepted a bid to play in the College Basketball Invitational for a third straight season. The Wolverines will host Big West Conference foe CSUN in the first round of the tournament on Tuesday, March 19 at 7 p.m. MT. It marks the second straight season that UVU has hosted a national postseason tournament game at the UCCU Center.

UVU makes its fifth appearance at a national postseason tournament this week. It also marks the team's third straight appearance at the College Basketball Invitational as the Wolverines made a run to the Final Four of the tournament in 2017 and defeated Eastern Washington at home last season before losing at San Francisco in the quarterfinals.

Utah Valley went 1-1 at the WAC Tournament last week in Las Vegas, defeating No. 7 Kansas City, 71-64, in the quarterfinals before falling to Grand Canyon, 78-74, in the semifinals. Conner Toolson was named to the WAC's All-Tournament team after averaging 18.5 points and 4.0 rebounds a game.

Utah Valley's Jake Toolson has been named the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball Player of the Year, while Wyatt Lowell has earned WAC Freshman of the Year honors, the league office announced on Tuesday.  Toolson becomes the first player in UVU history to earn WAC Player of the Year honors, while Lowell is the first UVU player to receive the league's Freshman of the Year honor.

With its win over Kansas City on March 13, Utah Valley has broken the school record for wins in a season at 24. The team surpassed last season's win total of 23. It marks the first time in school history that the team has won 20-plus games in back-to-back seasons.

Conner Toolson became just the eighth player in UVU history to score 1,000 points. The senior guard knocked down a shot from long range with 14:38 remaining in the second half against Sam Houston State on Dec. 22 to reach the 1,000-point mark. He is now fifth on the all-time scoring list with 1,218 points.

According to data provided by Sports-Reference.com, Jake Toolson is the only player in the country that has played in 20 or more games while shooting better than 55 percent from the field (55.0 percent), 45 percent from three-point range (46.8 percent), and 85 percent from the free throw line (85.0 percent). Such a season has only been accomplished 20 times since 1992. Of that group, only 10 players in that group scored over 300 total points in a season. Toolson is one of those 10 players. The junior guard is in rare company.

As of March 18, Utah Valley holds one of the top shooting percentages in the country as the Wolverines rank 17th nationally in field-goal percentage with a 48.5 percent clip from the floor. UVU also ranks 21st in the country in three-point field goal percentage at 38.5 percent. Jake Toolson ranks 55th nationally with a 54.1 percent field goal mark.

BROADCAST INFORMATION
Tuesday night's CBI game against CSUN will be broadcast live on the WAC Digital Network, which is available at WACsports.com/watch. UVU has also entered into a new partnership with KSLtv. The KSLtv app will be streaming all home UVU men's basketball games live. The game will also be streamed live through the GoUVU YouTube channel, and on the GoUVU Facebook page. Brandon Crow and Holton Hunsaker will be on the call. The game will also be broadcast over the radio waves as Jim McCulloch enters his ninth season as the voice of the Wolverines. Josh Kallunki will be handling the color commentary duties on the radio. The radio broadcast will be aired live on ESPN 960AM radio. A live stream of the radio broadcast will also be available at ESPN960Sports.com.

UVU MAKES FIFTH APPEARANCE IN A NATIONAL POSTSEASON TOURNAMENT
The bid to play in the College Invitational Tournament marks Utah Valley's fifth appearance in a postseason national tournament and third straight appearance at the CBI. The Wolverines played in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) against California in 2014 and in the CollegeInisder.com Tournament against Weber State in 2012. UVU picked up its first-ever national postseason wins in 2017 with victories over Georgia Southern and Rice en route to a loss at eventual champion Wyoming in the CBI Final Four. Last year's first round CBI game against Eastern Washington was the first national postseason tournament home game in UVU history.

All-Time Results in Postseason National Tournaments (3-4)
March 13, 2012    CollegeInsider.com Tournament    Weber State def. Utah Valley, 72-69    Ogden, Utah
March 19, 2014    National Invitational Tournament    California def. Utah Valley, 77-64    Berkeley, Calif.
March 15, 2017    College Basketball Invitational    Utah Valley def. Georgia Southern, 74-49    Statesboro, Georgia
March 20, 2017    College Basketball Invitational    Utah Valley def. Rice, 85-79    Houston, Texas
March 22, 2017    College Basketball Invitational    Wyoming def. Utah Valley, 74-68    Laramie, Wyoming
March 13, 2018    College Basketball Invitational    Utah Valley def. Eastern Washington, 87-65    Orem, Utah
March 19, 2018    College Basketball Invitational    San Francisco def. Utah Valley, 78-73    San Francisco, Calif.

CONNER TOOLSON NAMED TO WAC ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM
Conner Toolson was named to the 2019 WAC All-Tournament Team for his performance at the 2019 Western Athletic Conference Tournament last week. Toolson scored a team-high 16 points in Utah Valley's 71-64 quarterfinal win over Kansas City. Toolson connected on 8-of-17 shots from the floor, including a pair of threes. He was a perfect 3-of-3 from the charity stripe and registered a pair of key steals in 34 minutes of play. Toolson then scored a team-high 16 points with seven rebounds and a steal in the 78-74 setback to Grand Canyon in the tournament semifinal. Over his two games at the tournament, Toolson averaged 18.5 points while shooting 43.3 percent from the field, 29.4 percent from three, and 100 percent from the free throw line. He also averaged 4.0 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game. Utah Valley will likely continue its season in a national postseason tournament for a third-straight season. The Wolverines will find out tonight which tournament the team will be playing in.

WAC All-Tournament Team
Terrell Brown, NM State
Carlos Johnson, Grand Canyon
Tyson Smith, UT Rio Grande Valley
Conner Toolson, Utah Valley
MVP: Trevelin Queen, NM State

JAKE TOOLSON NAMED WAC PLAYER OF THE YEAR, LOWELL EARNS WAC FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR HONORS
Utah Valley's Jake Toolson has been named the Western Athletic Conference men's basketball Player of the Year, while Wyatt Lowell has earned WAC Freshman of the Year honors, the league office announced on Tuesday. Toolson (Gilbert, Arizona) becomes the first player in UVU history to earn WAC Player of the Year honors, while Lowell (Gilbert, Arizona) is the first UVU player to receive the league's Freshman of the Year honor. Toolson was named the WAC Player of the Year after posting five games with 20 or more points in WAC play. During league play, he ranked third in the WAC in three-point percentage (47.4), free throw percentage (87.3), and three-pointers per game (2.3). He also ranked fourth in both scoring (16.7) and field goal percentage (54.0) and sixth in minutes per game (33.8). Toolson was named WAC Player of the Week once this season. Toolson was also named to the All-WAC First Team. The junior guard is the only player in the nation that has played in 20 or more games while shooting better than 55 percent from the field (56.1 percent), 45 percent from three-point range (48.5 percent), and 85 percent from the free throw line (86.5 percent). Such a season has only been accomplished 20 times since 1992. Of that group, only 10 players in that group scored over 300 total points in a season. Toolson is one of those 10 players. He ranks 26th in the nation at the free throw line (86.9) and 44th nationally in field goal percentage (55.9). Toolson is the first player from UVU to earn the WAC's top honor. His uncle, Danny Ainge (BYU), won the award in 1989. Other notable previous WAC Player of the Year honorees include Tim Hardaway (UTEP, '89), Keith Van Horn (Utah, '95, '96, '97), Andre Miller (Utah, '99), Nick Fazekas (Nevada, '05, '06, '07), and Pascal Siakam (NM State, 2016).

Lowell earns WAC Freshman of the Year honors after leading all WAC freshmen in scoring (5.4), rebounding (3.0) and steals (0.5) in WAC play. He scored in double-digits in WAC games three times with two starts. Lowell becomes the first player in UVU history to earn the WAC Freshman of the Year honor.

ABOUT CSUN
CSUN travels to Orem with a 13-20 overall record. The team has dropped three straight, including a 71-68 setback to UC Santa Barabara in the first round of the Big West Tournament. The team has dropped three straight dating back to a 76-74 setback to UC Santa Barbara on March 7. The team has lost two of its last three games by just two points. Six of the team's losses this season have been by a margin of three or less points. Redshirt freshman forward Lamine Diane leads the team in scoring at 24.7 points a game and rebounding at 11.3 boards a game. Sophomore guard Terrell Gomez and junior guard Rodney Henderson Jr. also average double figure scoring at 19.1 and 10.8 points per game, respectively. As a team, the Matadors are averaging 76.3 points per game while allowing opponents a 79.1 points per game average.

SERIES HISTORY VS. CSUN
Utah Valley and CSUN have met on the basketball hardwood two times with the Matadors winning each of those meetings, both of which took place in 2007. CSUN took a 76-64 win at home on Dec. 5, 2007 before defeating the Wolverines, 73-65, in Orem on Dec. 28, 2007

All-Time Results vs. CSUN (CSUN leads 2-0)
Dec. 05, 2007    CSUN def. Utah Valley, 76-64    Northridge, Calif.
Dec. 28, 2007    CSUN def. Utah Valley, 73-65    Orem, Utah