RIVERSIDE — UC Santa Barbara ran out of gas in Riverside Saturday night.
Just two days after a last-second loss at UC Irvine, the Gauchos gave up 24 points in the last seven minutes at UC Riverside to surrender a late lead and the game, 81-69.
“I thought we played really well for maybe 32 minutes, and then we ran out of steam,” UCSB coach Joe Pasternack said.
The defeats drops the Gauchos (16-10, 8-7 Big West Conference) into sixth place in the league race.
The Highlanders (17-10, 10-5) moved up to fourth — a position that would earn them a first-round bye in next month’s Big West Tournament.
“Riverside is a really good team at home,” Pasternack pointed out. “They’ve beaten UC Irvine and UC San Diego at home, where they’re 11-1.
“They’re a good team with really good players.”
UCSB got season-high scoring efforts from its two veteran transfers on the front line.
Senior Kenny Pohto, a 6-foot-11 center, scored 24 points — just one point short of the career-high 25 he scored for Wichita State in a game last year against Norfolk State.
“Kenny was terrific,” Pasternack said. “He was 11-of-14 … We need to give him the ball more.”
Max Murrell, a 6-9 graduate transfer from Stanford, added a season-high 18 points while making 4-of-8 three pointers.
It matched the career-high of 18 points that Murrell scored more than three years ago during his sophomore season in the Cardinal’s Nov. 23, 2021 game against North Carolina A&T.
But Pohto and Murrell also had just one rebound apiece on a night the Highlanders rebounded 14 of their own misses. Riverside won the rebound battle overall, 38-24.
“When you give teams more possessions and second shots, and you lack the toughness to defend and rebound every possession, it’s really hard to win — on the road, especially,” Pasternack said.
The Gauchos had to play without 6-9 sophomore Koat Keat Tong, who injured his knee during Thursday’s loss at Irvine.
Pasternack does expect Colin Smith, a 6-8 transfer from Vanderbilt, to return to the lineup next week after having missed the last seven games with injuries. He’s had to sit out 14 games altogether this season.
Saturday’s game was a back-and-forth battle for the first 33 minutes.
Cole Anderson, the nation’s leading three-point shooter with a 52% accuracy, made a trio of threes in the first five minutes to keep UCSB close at 14-13. He finished with 11 points.
Murrell made two more threes to give the Gauchos their biggest lead of 19-14 with 13 minutes left in the first half.
Stephan Swenson hit a step-back three and Murrell made his third of the game to keep UCSB ahead at 31-28.
But the Gauchos made just one more three in 10 attempts for the rest of the game.
UCSB’s top five perimeter players converted just 6-of-25 shots and 4-of-13 three-pointers. They were out-scored 59-23 by Riverside’s back-court triumvirate of Barrington Hargress (26 points), Nate Pickens (18) and Isaiah Moses (15).
“Hargress was terrific,” Pasternack said. “We couldn’t stop him.”
Moses caught fire after Pohto’s basket had put the Gauchos ahead 58-57 with 7:28 to go. He scored 12 of his 15 points in the final 6:49.
He also made the defensive play of the game by stripping the ball from UCSB’s Jason Fontenet II and hitting another three just 14 seconds later for a 75-64 lead.
Moses then finished off the Gauchos by making four free throws in the final 1:52.
“It was a rough road trip,” Pasternack said. “We’ve just got to get back ready to go on Thursday.”