Basketball Game Preview: Yucaipa Thunderbirds vs. Redlands Terriers

The Yucaipa Thunderbirds will take on the Redlands Terriers at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Yucaipa knows how to get points on the board -- the team has finished with 55 points or more in their past 11 games -- so hopefully Redlands likes a good challenge.

Yucaipa will bounce into Tuesday's contest after beating Redlands East Valley, who they had gone 1-8 against in their nine prior meetings. Yucaipa walked away with a 69-59 win over Redlands East Valley on Thursday. Given the Thunderbirds' advantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 205th, while the Wildcats are ranked 537th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Yucaipa's win was the result of several impressive offensive performances. One of the most notable came from Malik Young, who dropped a double-double on 17 points and ten assists. Those ten assists gave Young a new career-high. The team also got some help courtesy of Jaxon Lerma, who went 6 of 11 en route to 20 points.

Young wasn't the only one working in the assists department: Yucaipa was working as a unit and finished the game with 18 assists. They easily outclassed their opponents in that department as Redlands East Valley only racked up ten assists.

Meanwhile, Redlands had to suffer through a 60-30 loss at the hands of Cajon. The matchup marked the Terriers' lowest-scoring game so far this season.

Yucaipa is on a roll lately: they've won 13 of their last 14 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 16-3 record this season. Those victories came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 67.4 points per game. As for Redlands, this is the second loss in a row for them and nudges their season record down to 5-13.

Yucaipa came out on top in a nail-biter against Redlands in their previous meeting back in January of 2024, sneaking past 58-55. Will Yucaipa repeat their success, or does Redlands have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.