Overview:
Ajay Mitchell, the Big West Conference Player of the Year, to battle one of the best guard lines in college basketball
DENVER — The NCAA likes to market its postseason basketball tournament as a March Madness Cinderella story.
But can UC Santa Barbara fit into that glass slipper?
The Gauchos will try it on for size on Friday at 10:30 a.m. when they face Baylor, the 2021 national champion, in a South Regional opener at Ball Arena. The game will be nationally televised by TNT.
“I love it, I love,” UCSB senior Miles Norris said of the challenging matchup. “We’ve got a lot of really talented guys on our team.
“I believe in me and my team. I believe in everyone on our team, so I think we’ve got a really good chance.”
Baylor (22-10), the No. 3 seed in the South Regional, was a potential No. 1 seed before losing four of its last six games in the brutally tough Big 12 Conference. But all but one of those games was on the road. The Bears are still ranked No. 10 by the Associated Press and No. 11 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll.
UCSB (27-7), seeded 14th in the South, will be making its second NCAA Tournament appearance in three years.
“We had a great finish to our season, winning seven in a row and playing our best basketball at the end of the year,” Gaucho coach Joe Pasternack said. “That’s what you always hope for as a coach.
“We’ve endured a lot of adversity, injuries in February, then coming back and getting ready. I’m just excited to get to Denver and enjoy March Madness.”
The Bears’ resumé includes neutral-site wins over both UCLA and Gonzaga, as well as home-court victories over the likes of Kansas and Texas.
“Baylor is coached by someone who I think is a Hall of Famer, a national champion, one of the best coaches in America,” Pasternack said of Scott Drew. “I’ve always admired coach Drew, for a long, long time, and how he runs his program.
“Obviously they’re extremely talented. They always are, every single year. We have a tough task ahead.”
The Bears have a three-headed hydra in their backcourt which averages a combined 45.8 points per game. Adam Flagler (15.5 points, 40.3% from three, 4.7 assists), a 6-foot-3 senior point guard, won first-team All-Big 12 honors.
Keynote George (15.8 points), a 6-4 freshman, was voted to the league’s second team while also being honored as the Big 12 Freshman of the Year. LJ Cryer (14.5 points), a 6-1 junior, ranks as Baylor’s top three-point threat at 42.6%.
But Pasternack has warned his Gauchos to not overlook Baylor’s front court of 6-7 junior Jalen Bridges (10.3 points, 5.8 rebounds) and 6-10 senior Flo Thamba (5.1 points, 4.8 rebounds).
“Baylor is extremely talented at all five positions,” he said. “I know their guards get a lot of the credit, but I think their four is very good … Their five is very good.
“Their offense is potent. They’ll be hard to defend. Their three-point shooting is excellent and they can really drive the ball, as well … I don’t see a lot of weaknesses.”
Drew has given his Bears a few cautionary tales of his own about the Gauchos.
“They’re a very disciplined team, well-coached,” he said. “They’re going to run their stuff, play the slower pace.”
Drew noted that John Jakus, his associate head coach, got to see UCSB point guard Ajay Mitchell play in Belgium “when he was 17 or 18.” Mitchell, a 6-5 sophomore, leads the Gauchos with averages of 16.4 points and 5.1 assists per game.
“He does a really good job of moving the ball and getting it to the right spots and the right people, and at the same time he can really score,” Drew said of the Big West Conference’s Player of the Year. “They’ve got really good players around him — a transfer from Cal (Andre Kelly) who averaged 13 and 8, second in the Pac-12 in rebounding, graduated there, and a player from Oregon (Norris).
“They’ve got high-major experience and, at the same time, it’s a program that in two of the last three years has gone to the tournament. They lost by one to Creighton (63-62) the last time they were there. Like anyone in the field, they are well-coached players and a good team.”
An upset victory would give UCSB a possible second-round rematch on Sunday against Creighton, a No.6 seed, which opens the NCAA Tournament on Friday against No. 11 North Carolina State.
Norris, a 6-10 senior who averages 14.1 points and 6.1 rebounds, will be making his third NCAA Tournament appearance. He played on Oregon’s Sweet 16 team of 2019.
Senior guards Josh Pierre-Louis (9.7 points, 4.0 rebounds) and Ajare Sanni (6.5 points) played with Norris on UCSB’s NCAA Tournament squad of 2021.
Sanni, who missed UCSB’s last nine games with a knee injury, has been working out with the Gauchos all this week and is expected to be available for Friday’s game.
“All year long, they’ve been talking about how this is a dream to play in the NCAA Tournament,” Pasternack said of his three NCAA veterans. “The celebration after beating Fullerton, they were just so excited to be able to get back there … The guys who haven’t been there, to reach the NCAA Tournament is just such a joy.”
Mitchell confirmed that, saying, “I’m so excited, you can’t even believe it.”
“Since I was a kid, I’ve been dreaming about that,” he added. “Playing in my little yard, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to go to the tournament,’ and now it’s real.”
UCSB surrendered first place in the Big West standings with a three-game losing streak in mid-February. Mitchell insisted, however, that the Gauchos never lost faith.
“I don’t think there were any doubts,” he said. “In basketball, you’re going to lose some games.
“You’ve just got to respond quickly. It took three games for us to respond. We did that at the right time, got back and were ready for the tournament.”
Guards Calvin Wishart and Cole Anderson both stepped up in Sanni’s absence. Anderson has shot 57.2% (16-for-28) from three-point range to average 10.4 points during the seven-game winning streak. Wishart has made 42.3% of his threes (11-for-26) while scoring at a 10.9-point clip in those same seven games.
UCSB began its streak on Feb. 23 with a 78-73 victory over Long Beach State even though Pierre-Louis and top front-line reserve Koat Keat Tong had joined Sanni on the sideline with injuries.
Pasternack posed a question to his Gauchos the next evening during a road trip to UC San Diego:
“I asked them the night before the game, ‘Who do we want to be? Why were we successful in the Long Beach game?’” he said. “They came up with three words. It was passion, urgency, and playing desperate.
“Cole Anderson came up with the word desperate. That’s kind of how we’ve been playing the last seven games.
“In February, all teams are injured. They’re hurt, they’re worn down. You have to find something to kind of take you over the top.”
And get you into the madness of March.