Overview:
Senior guard Skylar Burke, last year’s Big West Hustle Player of the Year, will lead the Gauchos into their Nov. 3 home opener
UC Santa Barbara women’s basketball is going small in a big way.
The Gauchos aren’t long in height, but they have plenty of longshot makers and speedy fast breakers to challenge all takers in the Big West Conference this season.
They’ll unveil their new, up-tempo style at the Thunderdome on Nov. 3 against Cal State Monterey Bay before challenging themselves with an 11:30 a.m. Nov. 6 matinee at third-ranked UCLA.
“The Big West is kind of a lower-octane league as far as scoring offense goes,” said Renee Jimenez, UCSB’s second-year coach. “We’re really going to try to move the needle in terms of points per game, possessions per game and things like that.
“The kids have really bought into that.
“We don’t have 6-foot-4, 6-5 … and we don’t want 6-4, 6-5 right now.”
Jimenez is planning a five-out, spread offense that forces opposing post players to defend on the perimeter.
“When we’re playing defense, we’re just going to make it really hard for people in the post by using doubles and being really creative,” she said. “And we’re going to play fast.
“Our goal is to score in the first 10-to-12 seconds of the shot clock and shoot a ton of threes.”
Off Center
Last year’s tandem of traditional, 6-foot-4 centers — Laurel Rockwood and Flora Goed — are no longer at UCSB. Rockwood transferred to Cleveland State and Goed graduated.
Jimenez experienced some sticker shock while recruiting their replacements.
“With the way the NCAA transfer portal is now — and the way the NIL (name, image and likeness) landscape is now — bigs are expensive,” she said. “We went a different route.”
UCSB’s incoming transfers are all uber-athletes who can shoot: Maddie Naro from Santa Clara, Zoe Shaw from St. Bonaventure, and Julia Puente-Valverde from McNeese State.
Four of the top five returning scorers from last year’s 18-13 team, meanwhile, are at their best in transition.
They include senior guard Skylar Burke, a 5-8 bundle of energy who led UCSB in both rebounds (6.3 per game) and assists (2.2). Her 10.4-point scoring average was second only to the 14.3 of graduating all-leaguer Alyssa Marin.
She received All-Big West honorable mention and was voted as the league’s Hustle Player of the Year.
She also earned a spot on the conference’s All-Defensive Team.
“Everyone loves watching Sky play,” Jimenez said.
The other Big West coaches probably have more respect than love for how fast Burke gets to the ball, whether it’s off the backboard or the floorboards.
The Queen of Floor Burns was among the seven players they recently voted onto their preseason All-Big West team.
They picked UCSB fifth among the league’s 11 schools — the same place they finished last year with a 12-8 record.
Jimenez expects to improve the Gauchos’ standing in both league and in Santa Barbara’s community.
“We want the game to be fun for our kids but also fun for people to come watch,” she said. “One of our players’ big goals this year is to serve the community with how they play and with the time they spend in the different events we do around town.
“We have so many new players on our team, and it’s been really fun for them to get to know different members of the community and work with some of the kids in the area.”
Burke plans to spread the word throughout the local youth leagues with her style of basketball.
“Skylar told me, ‘I want to go to some kids’ games and see little girls diving on the floor for the ball like me,’” Jimenez said.
Three’s Company
Nobody welcomes UCSB’s spread offense more than Jessica Grant, a 5-8 senior who led the Big West last year in three-point percentage (39.1%) and was second in total threes (66).
“Jess adds a nice piece from the perimeter, she’s just so lethal from three,” Jimenez said. “Besides it being an extra point, it’s points-per-possession, too.
“We’ve talked a lot about our field-goal efficiency and actually have a kid working with us who’s a data analytics major.
“He comes and stats our practices so we know which kids are shooting the highest efficiency and which groups are the best together.”
Jimenez plans to pair Zoe Borter and Olivia Bradley, both 6-foot-1 returnees, at the starting forward positions. Both are athletic, fast and can shoot the three.
Borter averaged 9.0 points and 4.1 rebounds per game last year as a sophomore.
“Zoe is the one who has really, really caught on,” Jimenez said. “She’s going to have a huge year, she’s just so versatile and big.
“She makes it hard for me to take her off the court with what she does defensively and with her rebounding.
“And her offense has really taken off — her ability to shoot the three, which she’s spent a lot of time on, and her ability to score with her back to the basket.”
Bradley, a redshirt sophomore from Adelaide, South Australia, was voted to last year’s Big West All-Freshman Team after averaging 7.2 points and 4.1 rebounds in her return from major knee surgery.
“She was coming off an ACL when we got here, and so people got just a glimpse of her,” Jimenez said. “But Liv is playing really, really well.
“So those three — Olivia, Sky and Zoe — are going to have huge roles for us this year. I’m really excited with where Zoe and Liv have come in terms of their game … And Sky is … Sky.”
The only other returnee to play much last year is 5-5 senior Martha Pietsch. She averaged 4.0 points while making 20 threes after having transferred from Oregon State.
“Martha was a little bit sick last year and didn’t get to play a lot, but she’s been playing really, really well lately,” Jimenez said. “She may be our first guard off the bench.”
Pro’s Progeny
Naro, a 5-8 junior transfer, will take over for Marin as the Gauchos’ starting point guard.
She comes to UCSB with some NBA DNA as the granddaughter of Naismith Hall of Fame coach Rick Adelman and niece of Denver Nuggets head coach David Adelman.
Her mother, Kathy Adelman Naro, was a playmaking star at the University of Portland and served as her coach at Beaverton, Oregon, High School.
The younger Naro led Santa Clara last year with 105 assists and was second in three-pointers with 33.
“Maddie is a true, old-school point guard,” Jimenez said. “She leads by example, leads by her voice, distributes the ball, can shoot it and is as equally a good rebounder as Skylar.
“She and Zoe (Borter) are both from Beaverton, Oregon, and they’ve been playing basketball together since like third grade.
“It’s been really fun to have them back together … People are going to love, love, love watching Maddie play.”
Shaw, a 5-7 guard from Melbourne, Australia, arrives from St. Bonaventure as another impactful newcomer.
She caught fire as a freshman in Atlantic 10 play last year by shooting 42.9% from three in 15 league games to average a team-high 13.3 points per game.
She also topped St. Bonaventure in assists.
“She’s super-quick and athletic,” Jimenez said. “She’ll be one of our best guards.”
UCSB is counting on another transfer — Puente-Valverde — to provide some rebounding off the bench.
The 6-1 forward from Barcelona, Spain, led McNeese State as a freshman with a rebound average of 5.6 per game before missing two-thirds of last season with an injury.
“She’s another kid who will play significant minutes this year,” Jimenez said. “We’ve got to have depth because of how we’re going to play offensively, pushing the ball, and what we plan to do with our defensive pressure.
“We’re not going to be (full-court) pressing, but we’ll be really aggressive with our trapping in the half court.
“With our depth, nobody should be holding anything back.”
The new Gaucho motto, she said, is “Defend, rebound … and let it fly!”
Frosh Approach
Two of UCSB’s four high school recruits — 5-10 Ava Rawlins from Folsom High and 6-foot Chauncey Andersen from Portland’s Jefferson High — should add to that Gaucho depth.
Jimenez was “pleasantly surprised” after last week’s scrimmage against Westmont College with how far they’ve come in a short amount of time.
“Ava will play some at the point-guard spot as a backup and also a little off the ball,” Jimenez said. “She’s a real high, basketball-IQ kid and a highly touted recruit.
“And people are going to really love watching Chauncey play … She’s extremely athletic and plays with a lot of energy.
“They’re both still figuring things out a little bit — their heads are occasionally spinning at practice — but they’re both really talented.”
The Gauchos’ future, she hopes, will become a reflection of their past.
UCSB has played in 14 NCAA tournaments, but none since the 2011-2012 season.
Although the Gauchos have logged seven NCAA wins — all during the coaching tenure of Mark French — the last came 21 years ago during their Sweet 16 season of 2003-2004.
The 63-55 loss at UConn that ended that year was the Huskies’ closest game in their run to the NCAA championship.
Jimenez has made a point of teaching that history to the current team.
“We showed the team a video that I found on YouTube, and it’s the whole story of that team and their run through the NCAA Tournament,” she said. “We had coach French talk and we showed their win over Houston in the Round of 32 at the Thunderdome.
“Our kids know about that season but they didn’t really know know, so showing that video was really eye-opening to them … Like, ‘Wow! This is a real thing!’
“They weren’t even born yet — most of them, anyway — and showing what it could be, and the tradition, and how proud the community was in their doing that.”
Jimenez also spoke about the effect UCSB’s many years of success had in stoking her own interest in basketball as she grew up in nearby Ventura.
She wants her Gauchos to promote the ever-growing game of women’s basketball.
“We’re not only playing for the past players,” she said, “but for a community that loves, loves women’s basketball here … and wants it back.”
