The unbeaten start to the season is over for the UCSB men’s basketball team.
The Gauchos had trouble hanging on to the ball against a trapping Santa Clara defense and suffered a 79-68 defeat at the Thunderdome on Tuesday night. It was their first loss after four wins — two coming against West Coast Conference teams. The last time they started out 5-0 was in the 1992-93 season.
Santa Clara forced the Gauchos into 15 first-half turnovers and opened up a 42-29 lead by intermission. The youthful Broncos — they have no seniors on their roster — were flying all over the court and frustrating home team.
“We didn’t have patience to move the ball and so we got very sided and tried to score way too much on one side of the floor,” UCSB coach Bob Williams said. “We didn’t move the ball and we allowed them to trap.”
The Broncos were especially annoying on the UCSB big men, who were responsible for 11 turnovers.
“They were very physical. We did not adjust to it very well,” Williams said. “We were very soft with the ball. We had 11 turnovers out of our post players in the first half. Maybe that’s an indicator that our post players are trying to do too much.
“I was not pleased with any one of the five bigs,” the coach added. “I do not feel that any one of the wings really gave us very much tonight, (either), not in terms of patience or physical presence.”
At the other end of the court, Santa Clara picked apart the Gauchos’ zone defense for close-range shots and open 3-pointers.
“That first half we tried to come out and play like we did in the second half at Loyola (when the Gauchos gave up 52 points). We don’t take care of the ball, we had way too much one-on-one play and a poor defensive effort, in terms of keeping guys in front of you,” said Williams.
An interior pass from Marc Trasolini to Niyi Harrison for a dunk started the Broncos on a 6-0 run to break a 12-12 tie and give them a lead they would never relinquish.
The Gauchos committed a nightmarish 15 turnovers in the first 20 minutes and shot a feeble 34.8 percent, hitting just 8 shots in 23 attempts. Santa Clara, meanwhile, made 15 of 31, led by 13 points from Raymond Cowels.
Justin Joyner said the team’s bad first half performance was not only a carryover from their second half at Loyola Marymount, but a poor practice on Monday.
“We didn’t practice too well and then we come out here and we’re sloppy,” he said.
“And sluggish,” added Chris Brew, who played solid in his first game as a Gaucho, scoring a team-high 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting.
“If practice is bad, there’s always a chance you can play that bad,” Joyner continued. “You saw that tonight, especially in the first half. We lost it in the first half, for sure.”
There was a spectacular play at the end of the first half that gave Gaucho fans the feeling their team would turn things around.
Joyner and Brew were streaking down the court after a Santa Clara turnover and Joyner dished off a beautiful pass that the freshman converted into a soaring layup just before the buzzer.
But Santa Clara continued its steady play. Kevin Foster hit a pair of shots and Trasolini completed a three-point play to put the Broncos ahead 49-35.
Foster led four Santa Clara players in double figures with 18 points. Trasolini scored 15, Cowels 13 and Robert Smith 11.
Orlando Johnson was the only other Gaucho to score in double figures with 11 points on 4-14 shooting.
After falling behind by as many as 17 (66-49), the Gauchos made a run at the Broncos in the last four minutes. Sam Phippen scored on a jumper, Paul Roemer hit a 3-pointer and the Gauchos got the ball back again, trailing 66-56. But the turnover bug struck again and Troy Alexander hit a couple of free throws to put Santa Clara up by 12 (68-56) with a little over two minutes left in the game.
Williams said he liked the play of Joyner, Brew and Jordan Weiner, who all came off the bench.
As for other players, he said: “Some of the guys that had really bad games are really good players. They’re going to get better from this. They’ll learn from this. This won’t be a defining moment for us. And, if it is a defining moment, it’s going to be on a positive side that really helps this group grow up.”
The first loss of the season can do that to you.
