Overview:
Four transfers and four freshmen including top recruit Karisma Flores have Renee Jimenez believing that her third season will be the charm as Gaucho coach
Fast-breaking UC Santa Barbara was burning rubber off the starting line in last year’s women’s basketball race.
And then it skidded off course when it lost the two big wheels of its backcourt.
The Gauchos went from a school-record start of 10-1 to winning just 10 of their last 19 games after starting guards Maddie Naro and Skylar Burke went down with injuries.
Coach Renee Jimenez described it as “like trying to drive a car without a steering wheel.”
“We really didn’t have the depth to cover for those two,” she told Noozhawk last week.
It motivated UCSB’s third-year coach into souping up the 2026-2027 model of Gaucho basketball with enough moving parts to go the distance.
“We went into our recruiting knowing that we have to have depth,” Jimenez said, “and we wanted it with more athleticism, high motors, high confidence … real energy guys.
“We brought in kids with an attacking mentality, a toughness mentality … players who are fun and exciting to watch.”
The fun begins Nov. 3 when UCSB plays host to UC Santa Cruz in its 6 p.m. home opener.
Jimenez recruited eight new players — four transfers and four freshmen — to augment the returning core of last year’s team.
Fab Four
The four returners are headlined by Zoe Borter, a 6-foot senior who won All-Big West Conference Second Team honors after averaging a team-best 15 points per game.
Borter was a threat both inside and out, ranking 29th nationally with a league-best, three-point shooting percentage of 40.9%.
She is the lone holdover from former coach Bonnie Henrickson’s last Gaucho team of 2022-2023.
“I can’t say enough about her growth and her talent and all that she’s meant to this program,” Jimenez said. “We kind of joke about it. Maddie called it — that Zoe is the ‘People’s Princess.’
“But she’s also a Gaucho through and through. I just want so much to win a championship for her this year.
“She has these big goals for what she’s wanted this place to be, and she’s earned them.”
One of Borter’s biggest assists was to help convince Naro to transfer to UCSB from Santa Clara University last year.
They were former teammates at Beaverton High School in Oregon.
Naro averaged a team-best 3.8 assists along with 7.7 points and 4 rebounds as the Gauchos’ starting point guard last year.
She injured her left shoulder in the New Year’s Day loss against Cal State Fullerton.
She played hurt when she returned for the last month of the season and underwent surgery last March.
“Maddie is the engine that makes our team go,” Jimenez said. “She’s really changed the competitive environment on our team and is just a great advocate for what we’re doing here.
“She’s one of the more underrated players in the conference.
“You pair her with Zoe, and I think they’re going to have a great year together.”
Borter logged 34.9 minutes per game last season while Naro averaged 31.8. Jimenez expects to give them more breathers this season.
“We’re probably about nine to 10 deep right now, and that’s going to make life a lot easier for Zoe and Maddie,” she said.
“Having some of these young guys come in to alleviate some of that is going to be really important for Zoe’s and Maddie’s success in late February and March.”
Pressure Point
UCSB’s other two returners, junior guard Zoe Shaw (8.9-point average, 36.3% from three) and sophomore forward Chauncey Andersen (5.8 points, 4.6 rebounds), figure to play prominent roles again this season.
Jimenez is counting on both players to ratchet up the Gaucho defense.
“Zoe really took to how we want to play defense differently this year,” she said. “It’s been, ‘We want you to put pressure on the ball and make it hard on their guards.’
“Zoe Shaw has really owned that and made that part of her identity as a basketball player.
“She’s also really grown a lot as a leader, vocally. That’s an area where we really challenged her.”
Andersen, a 6-foot sophomore, was a bundle of energy from Day One of her freshman season.
“She’s almost like an X factor for us,” Jimenez said. “Chauncey is just a kid who plays with an extremely high motor.
“She’s exciting to watch … She makes big plays. She’s really evolved in her confidence and her voice.
“She’s learned a lot from Borter and her style of play. It’s been fun to see her come along and see all her light bulbs coming on.”
Jimenez has fortified UCSB’s front line with two NCAA Division I transfers: 6-2 sophomore Nicole Steiner from Cal State Fullerton and 6-6 senior Olivia Anderson from Washington.
Steiner averaged 10.1 points and 7.4 rebounds — with more than half of those coming on the offensive end — to make last year’s Big West All-Freshman squad.
She helped beat the Gauchos with a double-double of 16 points and 13 rebounds in their New Year’s game last season.
“What she did against us when we played Fullerton last year is what she does here every day, so we’re glad we’re on the other end of it,” Jimenez said. “I told Nicole, ‘The best thing about you is that coaches can’t scout you — trust me, I’ve tried.’
“Everything she brings to our team right now are her intangibles.
“She’s quick to the ball. She’s quick to the boards. It’s the 50-50 balls she wins and the hard screens she sets … It’s all the dirty work.”
Jimenez regrets her failure to recruit Steiner after she’d set 10 school records at Los Gatos High School.
“She’s jumped in now, and it feels like she was meant to be a Gaucho,” she said. “She definitely has that Gaucho grit that we talk about.
“She’s high-academic, she’s very bright, and she’s tough as nails.”
Tall Order
Olivia Anderson is expected to give the Gauchos a shot-blocker on defense and a go-to, post option on offense.
She was ranked No. 25 on ESPN’s list of top 100 recruits after having led Ellensburg High to Washington state championships in both 2022 and 2023.
She never found a prominent role with the Huskies, however. Injuries limited her to just 10 games in each of the last two years.
“Liv works really hard and is really polished just from her time at that level,” Jimenez said. “She has a great voice on the floor and she’s going to be a great presence around the rim.”
She expects Anderson to hit her stride around mid-January.
“It’s just going to take her time,” Jimenez said. “She really hasn’t seen the floor much for the last three years, so she’s still getting back into the groove of, ‘How do I fit in with what we’re doing here?’
“But 6-6 is 6-6, and so it’s been really fun for our guards to learn how to play with somebody with that kind of size.”
Two of those guards are also transfers: 5-7 junior Mauriana Hashemian-Orr from Saint Mary’s and 5-9 junior Naomy Zonzon-Huyghe from UC Irvine.
Hashemian-Orr was recruited as a backup point guard but has turned out to be much more.
“She has been such a great surprise,” Jimenez said. “People thought that she was going to play behind Maddie, but we love playing them together because Mauriana has such a great feel for the game.
“She changes her speeds really well. She’s a smart defender. She’s able to get guys the ball where they need it.”
Hashemian-Orr’s playmaking skills, she added, should help free up Naro more as a three-point threat.
Zonzon-Huyghe, meanwhile, fits right into the pace that Jimenez wants to play with this season.
“When I talk about a motor, that’s her game,” the Gaucho coach said. “I told her the other day, ‘You are great at what you do because you do it at a 100% charge all the time.’
“Naomy just comes in and gets you … Gets a steal, a tip in, a putback.
“She gets these little plays that really make a big difference.
“She’s another great energy guy, similar to Chauncey and Maddie and Zoe.”
Fresh-ing Up
You can add Karisma Flores to that energy group.
The 5-10 freshman guard comes to UCSB as one of its highest-rated women’s basketball recruits since Mark French and Cori Close coached at the Thunderdome.
Flores was No. 49 among last year’s top seniors in the consensus ratings compiled by 247 Sports.
She graduated from Oak Park High as Ventura County’s No. 4 all-time scorer with 2,174 points. She’s already shown flashes of her offensive explosiveness during UCSB’s scrimmages.
“She had opportunities to play at some P4 (Power 4 conference) schools, but we’re home, and when it got down to it, we went hard after Karisma,” Jimenez said. “She decided that she wants to do something special and something different, and so we’re super excited to have her as part of our family and keep an 805 kid home.
“We expect big things from Karisma.”
Flores, she added, is “still learning the system,” and getting used to both the physicality of college basketball and the tempo of practice.
But Naro, she added, has “taken Karisma under her wing and is teaching her the ropes.”
“I’m just so happy that Karisma’s really found a home here,” Jimenez said. “She’s connected really well with her teammates, with the upperclassmen.
“She’s like every other freshman, just really trying to get her footing.
“But I’m excited to see where this season takes her.”
All four freshmen, Jimenez said, have bright futures as Gauchos.
Ava Albanese, a 6-2 forward, helped St. Louis’ Incarnate Word Academy win its final 25 games to capture last year’s Missouri state championship. Her team finished with a 29-2 record and a No. 7 national ranking from MaxPreps.
Sarah Heyn, a 5-8 point guard, averaged 18.0 points, 5.4 assists and 5.6 rebounds for San Diego’s Westview High.
Jimenez also recruited 5-9 guard Charlotte Lipkin, the daughter of former Gaucho great Erika Kienast. Lipkin averaged 19.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.9 steals last year for Bothell High School in Washington.
The Gaucho coach laughed while recalling the first day of practice for the four freshmen.
“Our returning group was working on a transition drill,” she said. “They throw it off the glass, and it’s like one dribble, one pass, corner three … and I hear our freshmen go, ‘Wow, that was fast!’
“But they’re an extremely hungry group of freshmen. They want to get it right. They’re competitive, which is a great thing for the upperclassmen.
“They met all of their strength and conditioning marks and have done a lot of things that have the older guys going, ‘OK, these guys came to play.’”
The entire team will be thrown into the fire of a challenging schedule. It includes a 6 p.m. Wednesday exhibition game at national power Stanford.
Cal will visit the Thunderdome on Nov. 14.
The Gauchos will also travel to Mountain West Conference favorite Nevada-Las Vegas on Dec. 13.
Jimenez talked Lady Rebels coach Lindy La Rocque into playing the game at Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada — site of the Big West Tournament.
“I told her, ‘I have eight new players, and I want my team on that court before the Big West Tournament,’” Jimenez said.
The Big West’s coaches picked the Gauchos to finish third behind UC San Diego and UC Irvine in the league race, but their coach likes their chances to win it all.
“Leaving practice every day, it’s like, ‘OK, we’re on to it now,’” Jimenez said. “If we can keep everybody healthy, I feel like we’ll make a really good run this year.”
