It was the second OT win of the season for the Highlanders (11-12, 4-5) over the Titans (9-14, 1-7), who lost their third overtime game in three tries this season despite career highs from Alex Harris and Jamar Akoh, with 31 and 12 points, respectively.
Johns put UCR ahead to stay at 65-64 with a pair of free throws at the 1:38 mark of overtime. Alex Larsson added a bucket and Austin Quick hit one free throw to make it 68-64 with 33 seconds left. Harris made a bucket and Johns made 1 or 2 free throws with 24 seconds left to make it 69-66. Fullerton got the rebound of a Johns miss on the second attempt but Akoh's pass intended for Harris went out of bounds. Johns finished the scoring with a breakaway dunk.
UCR shot 52 percent for the game and made 8 of 19 3-pointers. Fullerton shot only 34 percent from the floor and was outrebounded, 41-34. UCR's 22 turnovers allowed Fullerton (only 8 turnovers) to stay in the game despite trailing by as many as 12 points early in the second half.
Fullerton first caught up at 46 all and took a 4-point lead at 53-49 after a Harris bucket at the 4:17 mark of regulation. Quick and Larsson scored to tie it and Harris twice made a pair of free throws in the final 1:01 to tie the game two more times. Johns and Bland missed go-ahead shots in the final 31 seconds.
Bland made 10 of 17 shots incliuding 3 of 6 3-point tries.
"It was a great atmosphere, a great crowd, but we squandered an opportunity," said Fullerton Coach Dedrique Taylor. "Down the stretch we need to finish the plays. It's one play here, one play there. We had a pretty good defensive effort but I would have liked to see us score more than the 15 points we got off turnovers."
Harris played 41 minutes and went 10-for-26 from the floor and 9-of-10 from the line to go with 4 assists.
"I just tried to leave all I had on the floor," said Harris. "If I do that, I can live with whether we win or lose,"
Akoh also had a career high with 8 rebounds and played 31 minutes.
"I wish we could have gotten it done tonight," he said.
Fullerton travels next week to UC Davis and Hawai'I while Riverside travels to Hawai'I and hosts UC Irvine.
