UC Santa Barbara women’s basketball brought its winning streak home for the holidays.
The Gauchos, road warriors for their previous five games, made a triumphant return to the Thunderdome on Thursday by beating Eastern Washington 89-63 for their ninth straight victory.
“We’ve been doing a really good job of not being complacent,” junior Zoe Borter said after scoring a game-high 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting (2-of-3 from three-point distance). “Yes, we’ve been really proud of our streak, but we’re not satisfied with that.
“We’re taking it day by day, practice by practice, and just focusing on getting better each day.”
The nine-game winning streak is UCSB’s longest since it won 10 straight during its Big West Conference championship season of 2008-09. The Gauchos’ season record of 10-1 (2-0 in league play) represents their best start in school history.
They’ll now take a two-week holiday break before resuming Big West play with a home game against Cal State Fullerton on New Year’s Day at 2 p.m.
“Sometimes you get into this time of year of Christmas and you see the holiday and you’re like, ‘Finally, I can go home … Finally I can see my family,’ … and you start to relax,” UCSB coach Renee Jimenez said. “I kept telling them, ‘You’ve got one more final to take.’
“And I thought they aced it tonight.”
A family visitor from across the Pacific Ocean inspired a career-high 20-point performance by Olivia Bradley. Her mother traveled from Adelaide, South Australia to spend the holidays with her.
“It’s nice to just go home and be able to talk about the game with Mom without having to do it on the phone,” said Bradley, who made 7-of-12 shots which included a career-high three three-pointers.
The redshirt sophomore, the Gauchos’ tallest starter at just 6-foot-1, also grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds to help UCSB dominate Eastern Washington (6-5) on the backboards, 50-38.
“We’ve been working on family rebounding,” Bradley said. “It just means that everyone does their role.
“If I end up with the board, it’s because three or four other people boxed out their player so well that I got the rebounds.”
UCSB out-shot the Eagles 47% to 30.9%. The Gauchos also came close to their season average of 10.4 three-pointers per game — fourth best in NCAA Division 1 basketball — by making 9-of-25 attempts on Thursday.
They came into the game ranked 10th in three-point accuracy at 39.4%, with Jessica Grant, Borter and Zoe Shaw all ranking among the nation’s top 51.
“What people don’t see is they’re in here four times a week in the morning between 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., getting shots up every day,” Jimenez said. “They actually put in a lot of work outside of their practice slot.
“That’s what I’m most proud about. They’re workers.
“There’s no arrogance or cockiness about it.”
Kourtney Grossman got Eastern Washington off to a fast start. She scored both a runner and a three-pointer to send the Eagles off to an 11-3 lead after just four minutes. She finished with team-high totals of 17 points and 12 rebounds while Ella Gallatin added 16 and six.
Eastern Washington, a member of the Big Sky Conference, made 10 of its first 17 shots and led 24-22 by the end of the first quarter.
“We’re going to get everybody’s best first quarter, we know that,” Jimenez said. “The best thing about having such great vets like Zoe and Liv is just their poise.
“As coaches, we’re getting loud, we’re yelling, and they just play through it.
“We know we’re going to make shots and the momentum will shift, but I was really proud of their bouncing back in that second quarter.”
The Gauchos scored 30 points in the period by making 12-of-20 shots, a trio of threes and three free throws.
They scored 47 points in the last 15-plus minutes of the half to take a 52-33 lead into the break.
Defense was the difference, Borter said. UCSB surged ahead by limiting Eastern Washington to just 11 makes in its last 49 shot attempts of the game.
“We just all got together and focused on getting stops,” Borter said. “A lot of our offense comes from stops, so we can get out in transition.
“I don’t think we were too rattled. We were just really locked in on defense and rebounding, and that kind of transitioned into our offense.”
Senior Skylar Burke contributed 14 points and 10 rebounds with a team-high five assists — all season-highs for the preseason All-Big West selection.
“We put a lot of pressure on her and Alyssa Marin last year to carry the offensive load for us, and anything these two (Borter and Bradley) gave us was a bonus,” Jimenez said. “And now, Sky is like, ‘Oh my gosh, there are so many options on the floor, how do I fit into this system?’
“We knew her time was coming.
“Sky is an incredible leader. You could feel her wanting it, but she just poured into the group, poured into the group, and we just kept saying, ‘It’s coming, it’s coming.’”
Shaw scored 10 points, freshman Chauncey Andersen added eight, and Julia Puente-Valverde contributed six rebounds.
“It’s really fun to play with this team because everyone can score,” Borter said. “And it’s such a fast-paced offense.”