Big West Semifinal Recap: UCSB vs. UCI

NIT, here we come! Hard to get excited for that, I know. After taking in a day to soak in the fact that the Gauchos lost (for the third time) to UCI, I finally brought myself to write a little game analysis.

While I've had (and still do) problems with Bob Williams, the blame for the loss falls solely on the players, in my opinion. Not only did the team shoot 16-29 from the free throw line, they also managed to miss at least 6 layups. When you lost by 5 points, and you leave that many points on the table, it's the players fault. The players played tight and looked like they were indifferent to whether they won the game.

Sure, Bob should have laid into them with some intensity and fire. What disappointed me most from a coaching standpoint was Bob's willingness to stick with the same strategy that led UCSB to two losses against UCI. The Gauchos pushed the ball up the court when they got a defensive rebound, but then they allowed UCI to set up their defense while UCSB ran a half court set. That's exactly what UCI wanted to do and you played right into their hands Bob. If you're going into a fight with a guy who wants to stand up and box with you, but your strength is taking the fight to the ground and winning by submission, you don't stand up and box with the guy, you get his ass on the ground and you pound him until he submits.

Unfortunately, the Gauchos, who should have been running and full court pressing the entire time (their strengths) submitted to the will of UCI and did whatever they wanted.

UCSB had one of their best defensive performances of the year against Irvine, holding them to a 84.5 efficiency rating. However, that doesn't do you any good when you register a 76.8 on the efficiency scale (for the record, that is the second worst performance of the season). The Gauchos upped the pace slightly this game, running the game at a 65, but that was too close to UCI's comfort range.

On another note, everytime I watch Brett Lauer I get a good laugh. Not only does he look like one of the shortest players on the court (maybe 5'10" with shoes on), but his player page says that he is 6'1". I don't know why, but I find his dramatic height exaggeration hilarious.

Effective Field Goal Percentage
UCSB: 36.3%
UCI: 50%

The Gauchos shot horribly from the floor. 15-47 overall and 4-17 from the three. Alex Harris, Ivan Elliot and James Powell stunk up the joint going 6-27. That's horrible. Combine that with the missed layups and you've got a problem.

With 5 minutes left in the first half, the Gauchos had only scored 9 points and missed 4 layups. Basically, that sums up the game.

Offensive Rebounding Percentage
UCSB: 19.5%
UCI: 27.4%

When you look at our offensive rebounds on the face of it, we did a decent job. However, when you look at how many defensive rebounds UCI got (31), it's ridiculous that we couldn't get any more rebounds.

The Gauchos managed 19 defensive rebounds. Weak.

Free Throw Rate
UCSB: 61.7
UCI: 52.5

Throw this stat out the window. Prior to this game, UCSB was one of the top 10 free throw shooting teams in the country at about 76%. During the game, UCSB went 16-29 from the line for a paltry 55.2%. If you give the Gauchos a 75% free throw performance in this game, they make 5 more free throws. Combine that with the missed lay-ups and the opportunities were there.

Justin Joyner was the primary offender in this category.

Turnover Percentage
UCSB: 16.9%
UCI: 35.3%

The Gauchos did a great job of forcing UCI into turnovers. However, they didn't convert many of the 23 turnovers into points. That hurts.

That's it for this analysis. Looks like we'll have to wait and see where we're going in the NCAA, I mean, NIT.