HENDERSON, Nev. — The UC Santa Barbara basketball team took a lot of ice baths the last two nights to preserve its legs for a third-straight game at the Big West Conference Tournament.
But nothing was colder than its shooting touch on Friday.
The fifth-seeded Gauchos shot a season-worst 26.7% overall and 17.1% from the three-point line as UC San Diego recovered from its own frigid first half to run away with the semifinal game, 69-51, at Lee’s Family Forum.
“Our guys competed to exhaustion,” UCSB coach Joe Pasternack said. “We say, ‘Empty your tank’ … They emptied their tank.”
The top-seeded Tritons (29-4) advanced to face No. 2 seed UC Irvine (28-5) in Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. championship game. The Anteaters defeated seventh-seeded Cal Poly, 96-78, in Friday’s other semifinal.
UCSB (21-13) was coming off a quarterfinal victory over Cal State Northridge in which it came within one attempt of the school record of 38 three-point tries.
They seemed intent on breaking that mark on Friday. Nine of their first 12 shots were from beyond the arc, and they made just one of them.
They were 6-for-35 from three for the game — missing their last 14 in a row — and 10-for-25 from inside the arc.
“A little bit of a slow start, but defensively I thought we were great pretty much from start to finish,” San Diego coach Eric Olen said. “For the most part, we only allowed contested shots. We kept them out of the paint.
“We played a pretty complete game defensively which bought us the time to make our run.”
Stephan Swenson’s three and Ben Shtolzberg’s step-back jumper capped an 11-0 run that gave UCSB a 24-19 lead.
Swenson made another three just inside the two-minute mark to push the Gauchos ahead again, 27-24.
He scored 12 points in his final collegiate game, going 3-for-11 from three and 4-for-13 overall.
The rest of the Gauchos made just 3-of-24 from beyond the arc. UCSB came into the game ranked sixth in the nation with a three-point percentage of .389.
“We were able to rotate and get a lot of good contests,” Olen said. “We got a piece of a couple of threes and certainly had some that were difficult.
“Obviously they had quite a bit of volume from three and we were able to survive it.”
Shtolzberg finished with 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting.
“These last three games he’s been playing the best basketball of his career,” Pasternack said, “playing so hard, so unselfish, having an amazing attitude.”
Kenny Pohto and Colin Smith each added 10 for UCSB.
The Tritons missed five of their first six free throws and shot 33.3% for the first half — 3-for-13 from the three-point line — to trail 27-26 at the break.
The basketball gods also seemed to be with UCSB early in the second half. Shtolzberg’s driving, high-arching hook shot took a little bounce on the top of the backboard before dropping through the hoop to give the Gauchos a 32-31 lead with 16:01 to go.
But he lost his composure just 51 seconds after his highlight-reel moment. He was called for a technical foul for shoving San Diego’s Justin Rochelin after getting tied up for a jump ball.
“My players said he got contact in the head … He fought back,” Pasternack said. “He got knocked in the head and he responded — and he got a technical.”
The play seemed to turn the basketball gods against the Gauchos. The Tritons needed just three minutes to go on a 15-0 run that included a three-pointer by Aidan Burke that took four bounces on the rim before dropping through.
“It was a great energy boost for us,” San Diego guard Hayden Gray said. “We knew we had them a little bit rattled at that point, so were able to capitalize on that.”
San Diego shot 53.8% in the second half while making 11-of-12 free throws.
“Sometimes your offense affects your defense, and I thought there was some frustration there,” Pasternack said. “It was probably our worst shooting night of the year.
“To beat a team like this, you can defend for so long — but you have to be able to make some shots.”
Big West Player of the Year Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones flirted with a triple-double for San Diego while scoring 10 of his game-high 20 points from the foul line. He also had nine assists and eight rebounds.
Tyler McGhie and Nordin Kapic scored 13 points apiece for the Tritons, while Gray chipped in with 11.
UCSB got as close as 54-45 with 6:38 remaining when Swenson made the first free throw in a bonus situation. He missed the second, however, and the Gauchos came to complete halt.
“We knew they were on their third game in three days,” Olen said. “Our approach was just to play as hard as we can on every possession, and we felt that we could sustain that effort for 40 minutes better than them given what they’ve had to do for the last couple of days.”
The Gauchos scored only one of their last 11 shots — a putback by Shtolzberg off his own miss — to go with four free throws. The Tritons out-scored them 15-6 in the last 6½ minutes.
“Ultimately, our legs caught up to us at the end,” Pasternack said. “We just didn’t have it.”