UCSB’s NCAA Tournament season fell victim to the Florida Gators on Thursday, as the Gauchos were shown a quick exit, 79-51, in Tampa, Fla.
Florida had a leg up on UCSB from the start, leaping out to a 35-13 lead to crush any idea of a Gaucho upset. UCSB came into the game confident with its first four-game win streak of the season.
“We talk about giving ourselves a chance, but we didn’t give ourselves a chance from the get-go,” said Gauchos forward Orlando Johnson, who led the team with 21 points. “Like coach said, they just jumped out and they never even — we never even saw a chance at the lead. We had it 1-0 and that was about it.”
Johnson led the Gauchos to their only back-to-back tournament appearence in school history this season but couldn’t get UCSB its first tournament victory since 1990.
“It just sucks because you want to put on your best foot forward in these type of games and show you can compete at this level with these teams, and it just hurts when you just can’t get it done,” Johnson said.
The regular-season SEC champs were led in scoring by Erving Walker’s 18 while Chandler Parsons tallied 10 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.
“I think Chandler got us going. He made two threes,” said Florida head coach Billy Donovan. “I thought Erving and Junior then later on connected on some threes, and we were able to get some stops early in the game which kind of got us out on the break. And we were really able to kind of extend our lead, but really our offense was good, but I really thought we did a nice job defensively.”
UCSB head coach Bob Williams was impressed with Parsons especially.
“You can see why Chandler is MVP of the league,” he said. “He’s dynamic at both ends of the floor. He’s a much better defender than I thought he was, and he’s a very good rebounder.”
Florida was able to connect on 60 percent of its field goals in the first half and the defense didn’t seem to allow UCSB a single easy basket.
“Things weren’t going our way in the first half,” said Gauchos forward James Nunnally.
Nunnally only took eight shots and finished with 12 points, four below his average. UCSB as a team struggled to get good looks and shot near 36 percent from the field for the game.
“I think Johnson and Nunnally, those are two great players,” Parsons said. “They can definitely play in our league. Going into the game, we knew that they’re capable of going off and being very explosive scorers. I think we did a really good job following the scouting report, knowing what they were going to run and their actions. And I think KB and our guys did a good job on Johnson not giving him easy looks.”
The Gauchos trailed 43-19 at halftime. A quick 5-0 run to start the second half was UCSB’s brightest stretch but it was quickly squashed with a 20-5 Florida run. The Gators led by as many as 34 in the second half.
UCSB caught a tough break, literally, when Jamie Serna was forced to the bench in the first half with a broken wrist. Serna’s All-Big West Tournament performance was a big reason the Gauchos were in Tampa in the first place.
The Gauchos finish the season with an 18-14 record while second-seeded Florida (27-7) moves on to face UCLA, 78-76 victors over Michigan State, on Saturday.
