Basketball Game Preview: Roseville Tigers vs. Placer Hillmen

The Roseville Tigers will take on the Placer Hillmen at 7:30 p.m. on Monday. Roseville knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with 55 points or more in their past six contests -- so hopefully Placer likes a good challenge.

Roseville is headed in fresh off scoring the most points they have all season. They really took it to Yuba City for the full four quarters, racking up a 95-66 win. Given the Tigers' advantage in MaxPreps' California basketball rankings (they are ranked 312th, while the Honkers are ranked 787th), the result on Friday wasn't entirely unexpected.

Roseville's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Ren Marsh led the charge by going 10 for 19 en route to 27 points. With that strong performance, Marsh is now averaging an impressive 15.1 points per game. Matthias Howard was another key player, going 8 of 13 on his way to 19 points and seven boards.

Roseville was working as a unit and finished the game with 26 assists. That's the most assists they've posted since back in December of 2024.

Meanwhile, Placer waltzed into their game on Friday with 13 straight wins... but they left with 14. They blew past the Cougars 73-39. The Hillmen have made a habit of sweeping their opponents off the court, having now won nine matchups by 21 points or more this season.

Placer has also been performing incredibly well recently as they've won 16 of their last 17 contests, which provided a nice bump to their 21-2 record this season. The wins came thanks to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 73.2 points per game. As for Roseville, their victory bumped their record up to 15-8.

Roseville suffered a grim 63-40 defeat to Placer in their previous meeting back in January. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Placer's Emmett Rose, who posted 25 points and three steals. Now that Roseville knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? There's only one way to find out.