UCSB vs. CSUF Recap

Last night was a great win, on many fronts, for the Gauchos. In case you missed it, TGM believed that the Gauchos would lose (but hoped that we were wrong). It turns out TGM was wrong (hard to believe, I know) and glad that he was.

This cool widget chart below is brought to you courtesy of statsheet.com. It contains the advanced statistics from last night's game.



Shooting Percentage

UCSB: 50.0%
CSUF: 49.2%

Free Throws

UCSB: 21-28, 75.0%
CSUF: 12-15, 80.0%

Offensive Rebounding

UCSB: 10
CSUF: 10

Turnovers

UCSB: 11 turnovers
CSUF: 11 turnovers

Before we delve into the above stats, the most important line of the night was UCSB's offensive efficiency. This was their most efficient night of the season, according to statsheet.com. UCSB had an efficiency of 123.9. For those of you who don't know what offensive efficiency is, here is a very amateur definition. It describes how many points you would have if you had exactly 100 possessions in the game.

The second impressive stat of the evening was the Gauchos free throws. In their prior competition with CSUF, the FT line was reversed and this time the Gauchos returned the favor. UCSB had a tremendous 28 attempts from the line, while limiting Fullerton to 15. Arguably, the game was won at the charity stripe. Of course, it helps when the referees call 12 fouls against you and 25 against Fullerton.

Next, the Gauchos even surprised me with their rebounding prowess last night. They fought Fullerton to a stalemate on the offensive end and outrebounded them by one on the defensive end. As for three point shooting, it was the same old story for the Gauchos. They didn't shoot as frequently as they normally huck the three up, but they still shot 57.1%.

The one thing that still concerns me is the pace we play at. UCSB is definitely a team that follows the tempo of their opponent. They gladly let the opponent dictate their pace. Last night, Fullerton played fast and forced the Gauchos to keep pace. I would like to see them play that way every game, but it's something they need to look out for.

In other news, CSUN lost to Pacific in Big West play. Pacific and CSUN are tied for first, while Fullerton is third. UCSB is still fourth, however, they are one game out of first place. Right now, UCSB needs to play one game at a time, but they also need to realize that a strong performance to end the season could catapult them into first place and the #1 seed in Big West.