UC Santa Barbara didn’t bring its Aim Game to another women’s basketball contest, but this time it was costly.
They shot a season-worst 32.1% while going scoreless in the last 4½ minutes to lose 52-49 to first-place UC San Diego at the Thunderdome on Thursday.
“I challenged them this week that we’ve got to be tougher, and there were some categories that we talked about that we got A’s in,” coach Rebecca Jimenez said after her Gauchos out-rebounded the Tritons 37-33 and held them to 40% shooting.
“But they have to decide that in a game like this — especially when our defense is doing such great work for us — that they can’t keep passing up shots.”
Makayla Rose didn’t pass up making the Tritons’ final play, driving past her defender to score a three-point play that broke a 49-49 tie with six seconds left.
The victory gives San Diego (14-6 overall, 9-1 Big West Conference) sole possession of first place in the league standings.
UC Irvine (17-4, 8-2) and UC Davis (15-6, 8-2) are tied for second while UCSB (15-4, 7-3) and Cal State Fullerton (11-9, 7-3) share fourth place.
The Gauchos will travel to Fullerton on Saturday for a 2 p.m. game.
Jimenez said her team’s fourth-straight dismal offensive performance came more from a lack of will than skill.
“I thought we were too conservative the entire game,” she said of the Gauchos’ reluctance to shoot. “The amount of times our coaches had to tell players to shoot the ball was astronomical tonight.
“For 40 minutes, we were like, ‘You’re open … Please shoot it!’ And that was really frustrating offensively for me.”
UCSB has shot just 37.1% overall and 28.5% from three-point range in its last four games. It made only 8-of-26 threes (30.8%) on Thursday.
The Gauchos won two of those last four contests, but against opponents — Cal Poly and Long Beach State — that both have win-loss records of just 3-17 this season.
The only UCSB player to show much pluck during Thursday’s second half was freshman Chauncey Andersen. She came off the bench to record her first collegiate double-double of 17 points and 13 rebounds.
“She was in San Diego’s office at one point in her high school career … They didn’t offer and so she had a little bit of a chip on her shoulder,” Jimenez said. “I think the game meant a little something to her.
“I heard her voice a lot in the huddles.”
The Gauchos scored only 21 points in the second half, and Andersen got 14 of them.
That included all 10 of her team’s points during a three-minute outburst in the fourth quarter that turned a 41-37 deficit into a 47-41 lead with 6:16 remaining.
“That was a big coming out party for Chauncey,” Jimenez said. “I hope she can continue it.
“When she’s playing confidently, the basket is like 10 feet in diameter. I thought Chauncey gave us a great burst.
“She’s almost becoming a sophomore before our eyes, which is really cool to see.”
Olivia Bradley carried the Gauchos in the first half. She made three of their five baskets in the first quarter, which included a three-pointer that cut San Diego’s early lead to 13-12.
She and point guard Maddie Naro made a pair of threes between them in the first three-plus minutes of the second quarter to put UCSB ahead, 24-18.
But the Tritons’ Nick Polocheck came off the bench to make a pair of threes in the final 1:21 of the period to reduce the Gauchos’ lead to 28-27.
Bradley, a 6-foot-1 sophomore, used her quickness against Erin Condron, the Tritons’ 6-foot-4 center, to score 13 of her 15 points in the first half. She made 5-of-9 shots which included 3-of-4 threes.
But she went just 1-for-7 in the second half. That included two three-point misses — the last one which glanced off the front of the rim in an attempt to tie the game with four seconds left.
Jimenez said Bradley didn’t show the same offensive aggression in the second half.
“She kept looking for the next thing, the next thing,” she said. “I’m like, ‘The big kid doesn’t want to guard you … Just turn and face the basket, and she’s giving you a step, and you’ve got to let that fly.’
“That’s a thing that, in a positive way, we’re battling with Liv right now. ‘You’re open and we believe in you.’ She had a great look at the end right there.”
Zoe Borter, the other bookend on UCSB’s front line, made just one basket the entire game. Her three-pointer, followed by Julia Puente-Valverde’s putback, gave the Gauchos their biggest lead of 26-18 with nearly six minutes left in the first half.
But Borter, who came into the game averaging a team-best 15.5 points per game, missed the other nine shots she attempted on Thursday. That included a runner with 1:20 remaining that she couldn’t get past Condron.
“A team like San Diego, with a big kid like that, is going to take away everything you get at the rim,” Jimenez said.
“Zoe kept trying to do what I told her not to do over and over: ‘The kid is 6-6 with her hands stretched out.’
“She just made it really hard on herself. She ended up on the floor four or five times when she could’ve just shot the ball.”
The Gauchos’ last basket came on a runner by Naro, giving them a 49-45 lead with 4:34 left.
But Condron scored just 17 seconds later, and Rosa Smith’s jumper tied the game with 2:28 to go.
UCSB wound down the shot clock on each of its last four possessions, but came up empty each time.
“You’ve got to play for 40 minutes,” Jimenez said. “Not 39 and 20 seconds.”