Overview:
Better defenders and rebounders, plus more three-point shooters, were the offseason recruiting objectives of UCSB men's basketball coach Joe Pasternack.
Nothing stuns the senses more than a pop quiz in math, so forgive UC Santa Barbara coach Joe Pasternack for balking at my first question this week.
How many new players will you have on the UCSB basketball team next season?
“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve lost count,” Pasternack replied after a long pause.
He finally settled for the easiest answer.
“… It’s the most we’ve ever had.”
If next year’s Gaucho basketball season were televised as a reality show, it’d be best called Extreme Makeover: UCSB Home Edition.
The Gaucho House has been torn down to just a few studs. Only a few foundational players like Cole Anderson — a 6-foot-4 senior guard who ranks fifth in UCSB’s record books for three-point shooting (153-for-372, 41.13% for his career) — remain standing.
Pasternack plans to rebuild with five transfers and a pair of highly rated high-school recruits. He also has one more scholarship left in his toolbox.
“We’re adding a good mixture of experience, depth and talent, and we didn’t have that last year,” he told Noozhawk.
“It does start out like a ball of clay, so we’re going to have to mold it — but it is going to be an exciting process.”
Two graduate transfers — 6-2 point guard Stephan Swenson from Stetson and 6-9 forward Max Murrell from Stanford — bring plenty of experienced craftmanship.
Pasternack also shopped the transfer portal for 6-10 senior center Kenny Pohto from Wichita State, 6-2 senior guard Kieves “Deuce” Turner from the University of San Diego, and 6-8 junior forward Colin Smith from Vanderbilt.
“When you recruit out of the portal, it’s very important to do your due diligence and research to see about their character,” he said. “For all these guys, that’s what I thought — that their character was impeccable.
“They’re great students and they really fit our university.”
Catching Some Zs
UCSB has also snagged two top prep recruits: 6-8 forward Zion Sensley from San Francisco’s Archbishop Riordan High School and 6-2 guard Zachiah “ZZ” Clark from DNA Prep Academy in Chatsworth.
Sensley, who originally signed a national letter of intent with St. Mary’s, became the Gauchos’ most recent commitment last week.
He’d asked for a release from his National Letter of Intent with the Gaels on April 23 after Justin Joyner, their associate head coach, left for a new job at Michigan.
St. Mary’s coach Randy Bennett reportedly balked at first in giving Sensley his release. Nobody likes the math of subtracting the nation’s 87th-best recruit (according to ESPN) from your roster.
Joyner, ironically enough, was the point guard for UCSB’s NCAA Tournament teams of 2010 and 2011 — so add another assist to his Gaucho total.
UCSB also got Clark on the rebound — on the second bounce, actually — from Tennessee State.
The third time always has been the charm for the Clark clan.
His older brother, Skyy Clark, played one season at Louisville and one season before that at Illinois, before transferring to UCLA in April.
ZZ announced two years ago, just after his sophomore year of high school, that he’d be joining his brother at Illinois. He switched his commitment to Tennessee State at this time last year.
He decided to join his brother’s westward migration, however, by decommitting from Tennessee State and signing with Pasternack in late April.
“He has a history of getting to the NCAA Tournament at UCSB,” Clark told 247Sports. “And to be honest, it’s Santa Barbara.
“Who wouldn’t want to go to school in Santa Barbara? It’s probably the most beautiful campus in the country.”
Looking to Rebound
Nearly all the coaches in the Big West Conference voted the Gauchos as the league’s preseason favorite last year.
The championship would’ve led to their third appearance in the NCAA Tournament in the last four years.
Big West Player of the Year Ajay Mitchell headlined a returning group that Pasternack augmented by signing 6-10 Auburn center Yohan Traore from the transfer portal.
But injuries poked holes in the Gauchos’ lineup from the very start. Soft rebounding and incohesive man-to-man defense kept them from repairing the breaches.
UCSB finished with records of 16-15 overall and 9-11 in the Big West — by far the worst in Pasternack’s seven seasons in Santa Barbara.
The Gauchos were knocked out of the league tournament in the first round.
With Mitchell projected to become a second-round pick in the June 26-27 NBA Draft, and Traore signed by SMU to a major NIL (name, image and likeness) deal, Pasternack has worked hard to overhaul his program.
“We want to get back to a defensive and rebounding mindset,” he said. “A mentor of mine, (former Cal coach) Pete Newell, used to say, ‘Offense is me and defense is we,’ and that’s what it’s all about.
“When you have all these new guys, it’s about them being able to sacrifice for the good of the team. That was a big part of our last NCAA Tournament team (of 2023).
“We had some really good players, and they were all about one thing: winning the ring.”
Camping Out at UCSB
Mitchell, who led the team last year as a junior with averages of 20.0 points and 4.0 assists per game, remains a true-blue Gaucho at heart.
He plans to work the UCSB Basketball Summer Camp that is set for the weeks of June 24-27 and July 29-Aug. 1.
“He was the only all-conference player to stay at a midmajor school last year,” Pasternack said. “He could’ve left after he won the league’s Freshman of the Year Award and gone to one of the high-major schools that were tampering and trying to poach him … but he stayed.
“Sophomore year, after he was voted Big West Player of the Year and took us to the NCAA Tournament with the most wins (27) in school history, he could’ve sold out for a lot of (NIL) money … and nope, he stayed.
“Now he’s going to hold his draft party in Santa Barbara. That tells you something about this kid — about how loyal he is in a day and age when there is no loyalty.”
Mitchell’s success continues to serve UCSB by attracting recruits with similar NBA aspirations. The experts regard Pasternack’s recruiting haul this year to be a Magnificent Seven.
Verbal Commits averaged the seven out to 3.93 stars out of five — a virtual constellation for a midmajor, college basketball team.
BustingBrackets.com ranked UCSB at No. 8 in its “Top Ten Mid-Major Winners of 2024 Offseason.”
“I think we really upgraded our shooting,” Pasternack said. “At times last year we’d have three guys on the court at the same time who really weren’t great three-point shooters.
“That’s less likely to happen next season.”
Summer of Love
Fitting all the pieces together is the puzzle that Pasternack must now undertake.
“It all comes down to being able to intermix the new players with the returners and build that chemistry in a very, very short period of time,” he explained. “We only get about eight weeks with these guys, so we’re planning a lot of team-building activities off the court for them to get to know each other.
“This summer will really determine how successful we can be. It’s going to be a lot of sacrificing and seeing what we can instill in them.”
Their workouts will begin July 15.
Six returning players — Anderson, 6-7 senior forward Ariel Bland, 6-4 junior guard Ben Shtolzberg, 6-6 sophomore guard Jason Fontenet II, 6-10 redshirt sophomore Koat Keat Tong, and 6-8 senior forward Evans Kipruto — worked together the last two months.
“We did things differently this spring, making it really, really competitive,” Pasternack said. “Coming off the year we had, we needed to get back our culture — and that meant competing hard.
“Ben Shtolzberg did an excellent job. He was out five months last year after (shoulder) surgery and really struggled to get to who he is. But they all practiced all spring and looked very good.”
Recruit Roll Call
A quick look at the seven newcomers, listed alphabetically:
Zachiah “ZZ” Clark, 6-2 freshman guard: He toughened up the last few years against the best in the country. He played in the Atlanta-based, 20-and-under Overtime Elite Pro League before returning home to California to attend the DNA Academy.
He was at one time ranked among the nation’s top 25 point guards.
“He’s really strong and built for a freshman,” Pasternack said. “They now allow you to do on-campus evaluations, and he just blew us away when he worked out with our team.
“He’s going to be a really good combo guard for us.”
Max Murrell, 6-9 graduate forward: He played in 101 games for Stanford over the last four years. He emerged as a key reserve during his junior season by shooting 44.4% from the three-point line (28-for-63). He averaged 4.4 points while blocking 22 shots.
An injury last season, however, limited him to 17 games and two starts.
“He’s a very athletic guy who can really shoot the basketball,” Pasternack said. “We actually recruited him when he was at high school in Omaha, Nebraska, and he really impressed us during our on-campus evaluation.
“He’s a versatile player who can play multiple positions.”
Kenny Pohto, 6-10 senior center: He showed his versatility last year at Wichita State by averaging 10.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocks per game in American Athletic Conference play.
Pohto, a 250-pounder who hails from Stockholm, Sweden, is expected to give UCSB the pick-and-roll post defender and rim protector that it sorely lacked last year.
“He’s skilled, he can drop into the post and score, and he can shoot the ball from three,” Pasternack said. “He’s also an incredible student.”
Zion Sensley, 6-8 freshman forward: He averaged 17.5 points and 6.4 rebounds last season to lead Archbishop Riordan High to the CIF NorCal Open Division final.
ESPN rated Sensley as a four-star recruit and No. 9 overall in California. USC, LSU and Arkansas were among the schools that offered him a scholarship.
“Zion is a really talented, versatile guy who can play multiple positions,” Pasternack said. “He’s long, athletic, can really shoot the ball and he’s very coachable. Once he learns our system of doing things and gets into our strength and conditioning program with coach (Luke) Storey, the sky will be the limit for him.”
Colin Smith, 6-8 junior forward: He started 22 games during the two seasons he played for Vanderbilt in the powerful Southeastern Conference.
He was averaging 7.1 points and 6.6 rebounds last year when he suffered a season-ending injury to his Achilles tendon during a game against Texas Tech.
“Colin is a very talented, versatile forward who can really shoot and rebound the basketball,” Pasternack said. “He’s way ahead of schedule right now (with his rehabilitation), but we’re going to wait until he gets on campus to really see and listen to our medical team figure out when he can really go.
“We’re going to take him very slow and be very smart with him.”
Stephan Swenson, 6-2 graduate guard: The heir apparent at point guard resembles Ajay Mitchell in several ways. Both players are left-handed, both hail from Belgium, and both have guided their teams to the NCAA Tournament.
Swenson ranked 18th in NCAA Division 1 basketball for assists (203, 5.8 per game) while also averaging 13.9 points and 4.7 rebounds to lead Stetson into March Madness.
“He knew Ajay, saw the success that Ajay had while being from Belgium, and is now having him pass the torch to him here,” Pasternack said. “He’s an incredibly high-character leader, which we need.
“He’s all about winning, and he showed what he could do against the best by scoring 20 points versus (national champion) UConn in the NCAA Tournament.”
Kieves “Deuce” Turner, 6-2 senior guard: He led the University of San Diego in scoring last year with a 15.5-point average while making 37.4% of his three-point shots (64-for-171).
He also led the West Coast Conference by making 85.8% of his free throws (109-for-127). His best game of 34 points came against WCC champion St. Mary’s.
“He’s a great scorer, and at all three levels,” Pasternack said of last season’s WCC Sixth Man of the Year.
“He was an all-league player from a strong conference. We’re really excited about Deuce.”
The Gauchos have never been more eager for a turn of the season.
