Nooooiiicee!!

Nice job UCSB! That is the kind of performance that I'm talking about. Very impressive. Every once in a while, you get down a good friend of yours. Then all of a sudden they come along and do something that makes you realize why you're friends with him in the first place.



With their victory on Saturday night over Fullerton, 87-72 was very noooiiiiccee. First, UCSB stopped the two game losing streak. Second, they beat up on the current second place team in the Big West. I seriously doubt that the Gauchos were having an inferiority complex during this two game losing streak (Kind of like when you head downtown with your buddy, and he sees a girl he's been trying to get with, but she's kicking it with a "loser", in your opinion and his. To get over it, well, you get the picture), but it was nice to get a victory over one of the better Big West teams.

Onto the Four Factors:

Shooting %:

UCSB 64.8%
CSUF 33.9%

This was by far, the most impressive stat of the night. UCSB was a Deon Tresvant-esqe 9 for 15 from beyond the arc. Even their 2pt % was very impressive (64.8). That is smoking hot. Hopefully, UCSB bottled up some of this energy they had last night and open a can of whoop ass every game here on out. Clearly, this was our most impressive shooting performance of the season, and we've had some pretty impressive ones. The high percentage masked all of our other weaknesses in this game, as you'll see.



On the flip side, it looks like we held CSUF to some pretty bad shots. Josh Akognon was particularly woeful, 1-11 from the 3. Yowza!

Offensive Rebounds:

UCSB 6
CSUF 18

By this point, we've come to realize that UCSB isn't a very good offensive rebounding team. However, when you shoot almost 65% from the field, you don't really have to worry about getting the boards because there are none to get.

On the other hand, we can't allow teams to get 18 second chance opportunities. That's gotta get cut down. I'm sure that Coach Williams will work on that over the "break." That's the kind of thing that can really come back to bite you in the ass.

FT's:

UCSB 8-9
CSUF 25-31

This really stood out to me for a couple of reasons. First, UCSB is a phenomenal free throw shooting team (obviously, they wouldn't be in the national Top 10 if they weren't). Even though they only got to the line 9 times, anytime you're making all of them but one, you're having a pretty good day. Also, it seems as if the Gauchos were relying on their jumper this game because it was falling, so there was no need to get to the hole.

Secondly, 31 free throws? What the heck went on here? In my experience, as both a player and a coach, when two teams are playing, the style on both sides tends to mimic each other (i.e. if one team is fouling a lot, usually, the other team is hacking just as much). The FT discrepancy strikes me as a home field advantage for the Fullerton. I seriously doubt that UCSB committed that many shooting fouls, while CSUF committed only a fourth of that. We'll go ahead and assume that the refs were being fair, but that's scary that they would call that many shooting fouls.

Third, if UCSB didn't commit as many shooting fouls on CSUF, this game would have been even more lopsided. They got a full 25 of their 72 points from FT's alone.

Turnovers/Steals:

UCSB 19 turnovers, 8 steals, 18 forced turnovers
CSUF 18 turnovers, 11 steals, 19 forced turnovers

This is another category where UCSB's advantage that they enjoyed during out of conference play has seemingly evaporated (although, statistically, UCSB is averaging less turnovers during Big West than all games combined). UCSB is now running a turnover deficit. Although it was only a difference of one, the Gauchos need to work on protecting the ball with more care.

On the plus side, no one really stunk it up with turnovers. However, the guard (to be expected) trio of Harris, Powell, and Roemer accounted for 11 of the 19 total. A little more care with the ball is all I ask.

All in all, it was a good performance. The only thing that I'm concerned about is our hack-a-Shaq strategy that was employed (willingly or not) on CSUF. Cut those down and this game is a more brutal beatdown that it already was.

UCSB has a nice layoff this week. They don't play again until a Saturday match-up at Cal Poly , who is 1-3 in conference play. Let's make that 1-4 after the Saturday.

My prediction: CSUN is just keeping the #1 seat warm for UCSB. My advice to the Matadors, enjoy it while you can because like the law of gravity, what goes up, must come down.