LOS ANGELES — The UC Santa Barbara Men's Soccer team opens their 2024 NCAA Tournament with a first-round matchup at UCLA on Thursday night, a return to the site of their last national tournament match from 2021. Despite being Southern California neighbors and long-time rivals, Thursday will be just the fourth meeting between the Gauchos and Bruins in the NCAA Tournament.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from UCLA's Wallis Annenberg Stadium on Thursday night. Tickets are available now at ucsbgauchos.com/tickets, and fans can also catch all the action live on ESPN+. Live stats will be available through ucsbgauchos.com as well.
 
POSTSEASON HISTORY
Thursday night's game will mark Santa Barbara's 15^th trip to the NCAA Tournament, where they have a 21-12-2 overall record, reaching the National Championship game twice and winning it all in 2006. That 2006 championship match saw the Gauchos defeat UCLA, 2-1, in what was the first of only three previous NCAA Tournament meetings between the two Southern California neighbors. In fact, all three prior meetings have been decided by 2-1 scorelines, with matchups in 2009 and 2021 — the Gauchos' last NCAA Tournament appearance — both going the way of the Bruins. When Santa Barbara visited Westwood in 2021, current Gaucho Ramses Martinez scored the opening goal. Jared and Caden Vom Steeg also both featured, as did Nemo Philipp and Pablo Figueroa.
 
Thursday will be just the eighth time that Santa Barbara has begun their NCAA Tournament run in the first round, having earned a bye on seven occasions. In six of their previous first-round matchups, the Gauchos have emerged victorious, and Santa Barbara has won at least one match in 11 of their 14 prior NCAA Tournament appearances. The Gauchos are 2-3 in their last five NCAA Tournament matches and 6-10 overall on the road in the national postseason.  
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Santa Barbara's midfield is full of names to know, not just that of 2021 goal-scorer Martinez. Joining him in the Gaucho engine room is All-Big West First Team member Mikkel Goeling and standout freshman Manu Duah, both of whom played their first minutes back from injury in The Big West Championship. The Young Harris College transfer Goeling has NCAA Division II Tournament experience, scoring both goals in the Mountain Lions' opening-round victory in their 2021 postseason campaign. Backing them up is super sub Filip Basili, who posted career-best stats en route to an All-Big West Honorable Mention. Tied for the team lead with five assists on the year, Basili shouldered the load while Goeling, Duah and Martinez all missed time with injuries.
 
The man with whom Basili is tied on five assists is also the star around which this year's Gaucho team orbits: Big West Offensive Player of the Year Alexis Ledoux. The Frenchman is one of the top five Division I players for both total goals (14) and total points (33) this season. He also has experience in the NCAA Division II Tournament from his time at the University of Charleston, tallying eight goals and five assists for a Golden Eagles squad that reached the Division II National Championship.
 
Ledoux, Goeling and Basili were joined by five other All-Big West honorees: center back Calle Mollerberg (2^nd Team, All-Freshman), fullbacks Caden Vom Steeg (Honorable Mention) and Peleg Brown (All-Freshman), goalkeeper David Mitzner (HM) and striker Nicolas Willumsen (HM). Mollerberg has played the full 90 minutes in 12 of the Gauchos' 20 games this season, spending most of that time alongside the equally excellent Andrew Kamienski with Haruki Utsumi offering a third starting-quality option at the back. The experienced Vom Steeg and rookie Brown can both play up and down the pitch, with Brown having four assists to his name this year. Behind that defensive line, Mitzner has not been the busiest man in the world but the imposing, 6-foot-4 netminder has made some huge saves in clutch moments this season. At the other end, Willumsen has provided a second scoring option when teams have double-teamed Ledoux and is quite imposing himself, offering a big target for teammates to aim at in the penalty area.
 
SCOUTING THE BRUINS
UCLA (7-5-6, 3-4-3 Big Ten) also earned an at-large bid to this year's tournament after falling in the semifinals of the Big Ten Championship on penalty kicks. The Bruins' first year in the Big Ten produced a challenging schedule, with 10 of UCLA's 18 games being against ranked opposition. The Bruins went 4-2-4 in those 10 games, highlighted by a win over the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 national seed, Ohio State back in October.
 
The Bruins are 2-1 against opponents they shared with the Gauchos this season, with a 2-0 win over the Portland team that Santa Barbara beat 3-0 and a loss to the Cal State Fullerton squad the Gauchos drew 1-1 with. UCLA also hosted Santa Barbara's Community Shield rivals Westmont, winning that contest by a predictable 5-1 margin.
 
Three players — Andre Ochoa, Nico Cavallo and Allan Legaspi — make up the Bruins' inaugural All-Big Ten class, with Ochoa making the first team, Cavallo the second team and Legaspi the all-freshman team. Cavallo and Legaspi both feature in the UCLA defense, with Cavallo starting every game and leading the team in minutes played (1547).
 
Neither of the Bruins' leading scorers — midfielder Edrey Caceres and forward Jose Contell — were selected for an all-conference team, despite both tallying five goals in the regular season and a sixth each in the conference tournament. Team assists leader Philip Neaf, whose four-assist day against Maryland in the Big Ten quarterfinal brought his team-high total to 10 on the season, was also left the all-conference list.
 
As a unit, the Bruins are solid at both ends of the field, though not elite at either. Their 1.72 goals-per-game average ranks 56^th in the country and their 1.098 team goals-against average ranks 55^th. They are one of the better teams at keeping clean sheets, having posted seven shutouts on the year, though only three of those were with probable starter Wyatt Nelson, who has played every game since October, in goal. However, on offense, the Bruins are one of the least accurate shooting teams in the country, putting just 37.4 percent of their shots on target to rank 186^th out of 205 teams in shot accuracy.
 
UCLA is a well-disciplined team, having received only 29 yellow cards this season (to Santa Barbara's nation-leading 59) and having just one player with five or more.
 
UP NEXT
The winner of Thursday night's match will advance to the second round, where they will face No. 16 seed Stanford on Sunday, Nov. 24 in Palo Alto.