NCAA Tournament March Madness

#137 UC Santa Barbara

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

UC Santa Barbara’s résumé is built on flashes of offensive firepower and a few solid road wins, but it also carries several damaging losses that leave little margin for error, so the clearest path to the NCAA field is through the Big West automatic berth. The Gauchos have shown their ceiling with big home victories over Cal Poly and Cal State Bakersfield and useful road wins at Long Beach State and Sacramento plus neutral-site wins over Lehigh and Seattle, yet those highlights are undercut by a lopsided neutral loss to Utah Valley and difficult road defeats at Nevada and other conference venues that expose defensive inconsistency and a lack of quality results away from home. With nonconference résumé currency limited, the remaining slate — highlighted by must-win home dates with Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine and several sticky road tests at UC Davis, UC Irvine and Hawaii — represents the team’s best and most realistic opportunity to shore up its case, which is why an automatic qualification looks like the most sensible route.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/8San Jose St255W85-74
11/11@CS Sacramento285W92-87
11/17Loy Marymount161L78-74
11/22@Nevada63L77-64
11/28(N)Lehigh305W72-70
11/29(N)Seattle131W74-71
12/4Long Beach St236W84-77
12/6CS Bakersfield303W109-84
12/13(N)Utah Valley106L68-53
12/17@WI Green Bay226L67-64
12/22Portland199W79-61
1/1@CS Fullerton186L95-84
1/3@CS Northridge210L74-65
1/8UC Davis167L93-86
1/15@CS Bakersfield303W75-69
1/17Hawaii91W77-62
1/22Cal Poly269W107-67
1/24@Long Beach St236W74-71
1/29@UC San Diego10830%
1/31CS Fullerton18671%
2/5@UC Davis16745%
2/7UC Irvine11856%
2/12@UC Riverside27668%
2/14@Cal Poly26967%
2/19CS Northridge21075%
2/22@Hawaii9126%
2/26UC Riverside27685%
2/28@UC Irvine11834%
3/7UC San Diego10851%