Unlike most teams in college basketball, the UCSB women played a tough opponent for its season-opening basketball game Friday.
Fresno State won 24 games last season and went to the NCAA Tournament. Most of its players returned, making this a difficult challenge for the Gauchos right out of the gate.
The Bulldogs gave UCSB all it could handle, attacking the hoop, hitting 3-pointers, crashing the offensive boards and playing tough defense. The end result was an 84-76 Gaucho loss before 1,813 at the Thunderdome.
“Fresno State is really good,” UCSB coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “They run that dribble-drive system as well as any women’s team in the country, and they make you pay when you make mistakes.”
The Gauchos paid big in the second half. They were outrebounded 14-7 on the offensive boards, committed 11 turnovers and gave up seven 3-pointers in the last 20 minutes.
“They do what they do well,” Gaucho senior Jordan Franey said of the Bulldogs. “You get caught sleeping for a play and they’ll make you pay. They execute great.”
The Bulldogs expanded a 45-41 halftime lead — the last basket of the half was scored on an offensive rebound — to a 62-53 advantage with 9:22 left in the game.
“We really wanted to attack the basket better in the second half and shoot more layups,” said Fresno State coach Adrian Wiggins.
UCSB went ahead 53-51 on an 18-foot shot by Meagan Williams, but Fresno took over the game at that point. Joh-Teena Filipe received a kick-out pass from former Gaucho LaShay Fears and buried a 3-pointer to put the Bulldogs into the lead for good at 54-53.
Sparked by the play of guards Marnique Arnold and Jalessa Ross, Fresno went on a 10-4 run to pull ahead 64-57.
Ross led Fresno with 25 points, while Arnold grabbed nine rebounds (five offensive) and had three steals, and she played tight defense on Gaucho point guard Emilie Johnson, holding her to four points and only four shots in the second half.
The Bulldogs also got tougher on UCSB’s 6-4 Mekia Valentine. After pouring on 17 points in the first half on 8-of-9 shooting, Valentine got fewer touches of the ball and scored just five points in the second half to finish with 22. She also had 10 rebounds and six blocked shots.
“We had to change what we were doing,” said Wiggins about how they defended, “(Valentine) is good and Johnson is good. That’s tough to guard. We can’t get up that high (to defend Valentine). We’re not that tall. We had to try to keep her in the paint and tried to play in front of her more. It helped some that we have some physical players. But when she caught the ball, she’s tough.”
Valentine was playing with a bandage on her right hand to protect 14 stitches she received after cutting her hand during practice. She said the injury didn’t affect her play.
Gottlieb said Fresno’s double-teaming defense and her team’s inability to make stops hurt Valentine’s production in the second half.
“They were double teaming from the jump and we kind of expected that. Last year they did it. That’s part of their game plan. The key for us was the looks. I thought we got less transition looks in the second half. We were having trouble getting stops in the second half, which may have limited her touches.”
Scoring and then making a stop, it just wasn’t there for most of the second half. That hurt us,” said Franey.
Franey, who scored a career-high 27 points on 10-16 shooting, kept the Gauchos close with a rebound of her own miss and a turnaround jumper in the key, cutting the deficit to 67-61 with 6:01 left.
But Ross came back by beating a defender on the dribble and getting a 3-point play.
Ross then put the game out of reach after a Gaucho turnover, canning a 3-pointer for a 75-63 lead with 4:15 left.
The Gauchos won’t have much time to dwell on the loss. They’ll travel Saturday to Reno for a Sunday game against Nevada.
“A loss hurts but we’re going to go after it tomorrow (in practice) and learn from it,” said Johnson. “There are some things we need to fix. This is the first game and we’re going to learn from it and have a great season. Everybody on the team is focused and we’re going to do what we need to do to have a great year. And we have the potential.”
Gottlieb agreed that the team has great potential to do great things this season. Her first order of business to get the Gauchos back on track is improving their defense.
“The focus is going to be not give up 84 points,” she said.
