Small quibble. The Gauchos are shooting 37.8% from three, not 46.8%. Also, the Gauchos have yet to zone this season...and Joe Pasternack's expressed philosophy is that we will not zone, ever, period, end of statement.
Thanks for the corrections. I mixed up the shooting percentages for the Gauchos. It should be 46.8% overall which is outstanding and 37.8% from 3 which isn't shabby either.
I was just speculating about the zone since it has caused us problems this year. We have done much better against man defenses.
Riverside gets their first conference win and ends a 10 game losing streak by beating Hawai'i 64-60 on the island. This is the first time that Hawai'i has lost 4 straight conference games since joining the league. Wow...the wild, wild Big West...
Very surprising loss by Hawaii at home. Both games the Warriors had against UCSB were such battles so hard for me to believe this is the same team that has now lost consecutive games to Riverside & Poly.
Separation is occurring. Davis, UCSB & UCI are the clear top three now. LB & Fullerton still in the hunt and UH dropping down to the bottom half of the league.
From a UCSB perspective, we've only played one game against UCI & Davis and two games against that second tier (CSF, LB). The Gauchos are 3-0 so far in these but that leaves 5 games to go against the best teams in the league. Their tied-for-first status is certainly precarious. If Moneke is out tonight, that is an opportunity UCSB needs to take advantage of, even if they are short-handed themselves.
Looks like they are making a full court press to get people out to the game tonight. Greek night, win free sushi for a year, and discount GA tickets if you use the promo code #916. Though I just tried that code and it gave me an error message. Maybe it'll work later on.
I hope we get a good crowd tonight and hope they are noisy. I think this team deserves a lot of recognition for how they have handled all the adversity of the past week and then went out shocked Long Beach. I couldn't be more proud of this team win or lose tonight.
I saw the free sushi for a year promotion on twitter two days ago (I think), then the Greek Day promotion yesterday, and the discounted tickets (which still doesn't work) this morning. Hopefully they've been working with to fire up the greek houses for more than just a day.
Jalen Canty update: According to the SB Newspress his status for tonight's game is still undetermined but he is making the trip and bringing his gear. The offense was neither criminal nor academic and the decision for him to play is purely by the athletic department so apparentlly a more minor violation.
That's good news for the Gauchos but probably not so good for us. I'm happy for the team and the Gaucho fans if things have been settled fairly for Canty.
Yes, good energy and atmosphere last night from the crowd. The students should be out there and cheering/having fun like that every home game, at least for the Big West games. Hopefully enough of them had a good time, despite the rare home loss to come out again.