The defense made its case and the verdict is in.
The UCSB women’s basketball team is guilty of suffocating Gonzaga’s offense in a 59-47 decision at the Thunderdome on Sunday.
The Gauchos limited Gonzaga to 32-percent shooting from the field while holding an opponent below 50 points for the second game in a row.
“I think the defensive growth of this team has been pretty phenomenal over the course of the last two weeks,” UCSB head coach Lindsay Gottlieb, whose team evens its record at 3-3 after starting the season 1-3.
Gonzaga falls to 8-2 — its only other loss a three-point setback to Marquette in Milwaukee at the WBCA Classic. The Bulldogs’ previous scoring low came in a 60-55 victory over Utah in late November.
The first half was a struggle.
UCSB was the better shooting team making just 31 percent of its shots. Both teams plodded through an unmajestic 6-1/2 minute scoring drought with the score deadlocked at 4-6 in Gonzaga’s favor.
While each side stalled in the early going, UCSB was the only school able to kick it into gear.
Emilie Johnson sank a 3-pointer to break the spell and put the Gauchos up just 7-6 with over 11 minutes already off the clock.
A few minutes later, Johnson hit another trey and set the Gauchos off on a 30-8 run that spread into the second half. UCSB extended its lead to as many as 23 and never let Gonzaga get into any sort of rhythm throughout.
“We held a very good, high-scoring team to 47 points. I’m very happy about that,” Gottlieb admitted, crediting the players with accepting their roles and playing them to a ‘T’.
Lauren Pederson played her way into the Gaucho record books on Sunday. Despite a poor shooting night, Pederson’s 12 assists and seven steals both tie top-10 marks in UCSB women’s basketball history, sharing the record with former teammate Jessica Wilson (among others).
After the game, Pederson wasn’t worried about scoring well-under her team-leading average of 14.8 points-per-game.
“Shooting is not the most important aspect of the game,” said the senior guard. “It’s winning.”
Sophomore Margaret Johnson had her best all-around game of her young career for the Gauchos, scoring 13 points on 5-for-8 shooting with eight rebounds and four assists. Five of the rebounds came on the offensive end.
The Gauchos, led on the defensive side by last year’s Big West Defensive Player-of-the-Year Whitney Warren, shut out Gonzaga’s Cour Vandersloot, who had been averaging almost 19-1/2 points-per-game.
“Whitney gives us, I think, the best defender on the West Coast night in and night out,” praised Gottlieb, whose team now heads back onto the road where they are 0-3.
The Gauchos play Pepperdine, another West Coast Conference team, in its next game on 2 p.m. next Sunday.
