SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – It's a new season for UC Santa Barbara Men's Basketball as they kick off the season against the San Francisco State Gators on Monday, Nov. 4. This is the first of 31 games for the 2024-25 season.
LOOKING AT THE GAUCHOS
With this new season comes a lot of new faces for UC Santa Barbara Basketball as the Gauchos only return 33.8 percent of their scoring from last season. Key returners for the Gauchos include senior
Cole Anderson, senior
Ariel Bland, sophomore
Jason Fontenet II, redshirt sophomore
Koat Keat Tong and senior
Evans Kipruto.
Along with all of the returners, there are eight new faces joining the roster. There are six transfer students in
Stephan Swenson from Stetson,
Deuce Turner from San Diego,
Max Murrell from Stanford,
Colin Smith from Vanderbilt,
Kenny Pohto from Wichita State and
Chris Mitchell from Cal State San Bernardino. Along with those six, highly-ranked freshmen
Zion Sensley and
Zachiah Clark join the roster.
Head Coach
Joe Pasternack is heading into his eighth season with the program. He has had the best seven-year stretch in UC Santa Barbara Men's Basketball history, boasting a win percentage of 68.5 percent. He is just two wins away from grabbing his 150th win as a Gaucho.
SCOUTING THE GATORS
San Francisco State comes into this season looking to make it into the Division II CCAA Tournament again for the third straight season. In the Preseason Coaches' Poll, the Gators were picked to finish sixth out of 12 teams.
The Gators only lost four people from last year's team while bringing in four freshmen this season. Overall, the Gators return 84.9 percent of their scoring from last season.
The Purple and Gold return their two leading scorers in Jailen Daniel-Dalton and Tyjean Burrell. Daniel-Dalton recorded the most points with 365 while Burrell tallied 313 points.
Not only did Daniel-Dalton lead the Gators in scoring, but he is also their primary rebounder and was the team's assist leader. He wrapped up his sophomore season with 206 rebounds and 50 assists. With these numbers, he averaged 11.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game.
WHEREABOUTS
Tipoff for the first game of the season will be at 7 p.m. inside of The Thunderdome. For those who can't make it to Santa Barbara, they can watch all of the action at home on ESPN+.
