A trip to the University of Kansas and Florida-Gulf Coast to open the season, a spot in the Great Alaska Shootout and a trio of other high-profile road games highlight the 2014-15 UC Santa Barbara basketball schedule released Friday.
The Gauchos will open the campaign with a Nov. 14 contest at Kansas’ famed Phog Allen Fieldhouse before heading south to Fort Myers, Fla., to take-on Florida-Gulf Coast in a Nov. 17 game. The game against the Eagles will be the first of a home-and-home as the teams will also meet at the Thunderdome on Jan. 5.
Upon returning from Sunshine State, the Gauchos will play their first regular season home game, Nov. 22 against The Master’s College, before hitting the road for three games at the Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage on Nov. 27-29. UCSB will be joined at the fabled tournament by Mercer, Pacific, Colorado State, Rice, Washington State, Missouri State and the host school, Alaska-Anchorage.
Three of the first four games in December will be at the Thunderdome with Seattle University (Dec. 4), San Diego (Dec. 11) and San Diego Christian (Dec. 19) coming to town. The one road game over that span will be a trip to Dallas where the Gauchos will play Larry Brown’s SMU Mustangs on Dec. 8. The month will close with a pair of trips to the Pacific Northwest as UCSB will play at Oregon on Dec. 22 and at Oregon State on Dec. 30.
Immediately after the calendar turns from 2014 to 2015, Santa Barbara will host Vermont on Jan. 2. The Jan. 5 game against Florida Gulf-Coast will be the final non-conference encounter of the season.
The Gauchos will open league play on Jan. 10 at Cal Poly and their first home conference game will be Jan. 17 against Cal State Northridge.
“This is a big time schedule with a lot of good opponents,” said UCSB head coach Bob Williams. “We have good home games in San Diego, Vermont and Florida-Gulf Coast and some very challenging road games. You don’t get much better than playing at Kansas and SMU, they’re both postseason teams, and the trips to Oregon, Oregon State, Florida-Gulf Coast and the tournament in Alaska will all be great experiences for our team”
Williams said credit for the schedule goes to Gaucho assistant coach Kevin Bromley.
“Coach Bromley worked very hard on this schedule,” Williams said. “Scheduling is not an easy thing to do these days and the one he put together for us next season is outstanding.”
UCSB’s 2014-15 schedule will see the team travel just over 26,400 miles and play in five time zones. The sole unlucky time zone will be mountain.
