SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - UC Santa Barbara clinched its first Big West Conference regular season championship since 2010 with a 71-57 win over visiting Cal Poly on Friday evening.

JaQuori McLaughlin scored 15 points and had seven assists, Amadou Sow added 13 points, Miles Norris had 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and Robinson Idehen scored 12 on a perfect 5-for-5 night from the field as the Gauchos (18-4 overall, 12-3 Big West) won for the 14th time in their last 15 games and claimed the No. 1 seed at next week's Big West Tournament.

The regular season title is the first for UCSB since the 2009-10 season. That team also won the Big West Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The program also won regular season league titles in 2007-08 and 2002-03, and a Western Division championship in 1998-99.

Santa Barbara, which won its school record 16th straight home game, trailed the Mustangs (3-18, 1-14) just once, at 4-3 in the opening minutes, but seized control late in the first half, taking a 33-23 halftime lead. Cal Poly scored the first basket of the second half to cut the advantage to single-digits, but that was the last time they were that close the rest of the way.

"I'm proud of the way this team has really come together this season," said head coach Joe Pasternack. "After we lost the first two conference games at Irvine there was a lot of panic, but we really committed ourselves to honoring the process and becoming the team that we have become."

Since dropping their first two league games at UC Irvine the Gauchos have won 14 of their last 15 games and set school records for overall winning streak (13), home winning streak (16), true road winning streak (seven) and conference wins (11). 

UCSB has now beaten its Central Coast rival seven straight times and 14 of the last 15. 

The Gauchos forced the Mustangs into 17 turnovers and had 12 steals, led by Josh Pierre-Louis with four. McLaughlin added three. They had a 21-2 advantage in points-off-turnovers, and a 12-0 edge on fast break points.

Colby Rogers led Cal Poly with 21 points while Alimamy Koroma had 17.

UCSB and Cal Poly will finish the regular season on Saturday afternoon with another 5:00 p.m. tip-off in the Thunderdome.