LA JOLLA — The best-shooting team in Big West Conference men’s basketball won its fifth straight game on Thursday by disarming its opponent.
UC Santa Barbara held UC San Diego to 36% shooting and scored 23 points off the Tritons’ 19 turnovers in a 62-48 road victory at LionTree Arena on Thursday.
“We didn’t have our best offensive night,” Gaucho coach Joe Pasternack said, “but defense travels.”
The victory moves UCSB (14-7, 7-3 Big West Conference) into a second-place tie with Hawai’i (15-5, 7-3) in the league standings. They trail first-place UC Irvine (15-7, 8-2), an overtime winner over the Rainbow Warriors on Thursday, by just one game.
The Gauchos, who had lost five of six games before their winning streak, held San Diego (15-7, 5-5) to a season-low 48 points. The Tritons’ 36% shooting was also the lowest allowed by UCSB this season.
“I think our guys understand that in the last three weeks, we’ve gotten better defensively,” Pasternack said. “We’ve really gotten better defensively because we’ve really, really worked on it and made it an emphasis every second of every day.”
UCSB came into the game ranked 36th in the country in field-goal accuracy (48.6%) and 12th in three-point shooting (39.1%) while leading the Big West in both categories. But it was also 320th out of 361 NCAA Division 1 teams in field-goal percentage allowed (46.9%).
But the script was flipped on Thursday for the Gauchos, who shot just 37.3% against San Diego.
“We competed defensively against the best offense in our league and made it hard on them,” Tritons’ coach Clint Allard said. “But you can’t have 19 turnovers against a good team and expect to have success.”
UCSB missed four of its first five shots while committing a pair of turnovers in the first four minutes.
But freshman C.J. Shaw came off the bench to snap the offense to life with back-to-back three-pointers.
The Gauchos made five more threes in the first half — two by Colin Smith and one apiece by Miro Little, Zion Sensley and Aidan Mahaney — to take a 35-22 lead into the locker room.
Little led UCSB with 15 points — eight coming on free throws — and eight rebounds. Sensley added 10 points and seven rebounds, while Shaw and Mahaney also scored 10 points apiece.
But the Gauchos stumbled at the start of the second half, committing six of their 12 turnovers and missing five of six shots during the first 6½ minutes.
San Diego opened the period on an 8-2 run, with Tom Beattie’s layup off a steal trimming UCSB’s lead to 37-30. Bol Dengdit, the Tritons’ leading scorer with 15 points, contributed a three-pointer to the outburst.
“The first half was an excellent first half, and for whatever reason, the first six to eight minutes of the second half was really tough on us,” Pasternack said. “We turned the ball over, took bad shots, and you can’t do that on the road. You just can’t.”
Smith put UCSB back on track, however, by spinning through the key for a layup and then hitting a long three on back-to-back possessions.
Another dazzling, scoring drive by Shaw got the margin back to 14 points, 47-33, with 11:08 remaining.
San Diego couldn’t get back within single digits of the Gauchos the rest of the night.
“Anytime you can go on the road and win like that, and with that kind of crowd, I’m really proud of our guys,” Pasternack. “They really competed.”
UCSB, which suffered its worst Big West defeat at Cal State Fullerton on New Year’s Day, 95-84, will get a rematch with the Titans (10-12, 5-5) at the Thunderdome on Saturday at 6 p.m.
All students, grades K through 12, will be offered free admission.
Fullerton has won four of its last six games.
“Believe it or not, I think Fullerton is one of the best teams in our league,” Pasternack said. “They’re the fourth-fastest-paced team in the country.
“They blitzed us at their place. Blitzed us. It was 16-to-2 to start the game.”
But UCSB’s defense turned the corner defensively on Thursday for what he hopes will be a big finish to the Gauchos’ season.