LOS ANGELES — The No. 10 UC Santa Barbara Men's Water Polo team will look to finish its regular season on a strong note this weekend, with two matches left to play before The Big West Championship. The Gauchos will visit No. 1 USC on Saturday for one last non-conference contest, then host Cal State Fullerton on Sunday for Senior Day. With a win over the Titans, Santa Barbara would remain in contention for a first-round bye in The Big West Championship, though they would need help from Long Beach State and potentially UC San Diego to secure it.
 
LAST TIME OUT
Santa Barbara would have been hoping that USC somehow slipped down to no. 6 in this week's national rankings because the Gauchos have been on a tear against that specific spot in the polls. On Saturday, Santa Barbara played its third different opponent occupying that sixth spot and, for the third time, upset them, this time handing UC Davis its first conference loss in Davis. After one-goal thrillers against then-No. 6 San Jose State and UC San Diego, the Gauchos' 16-13 shootout with the Aggies was their best result of the season, breaking a streak of five straight games decided by two goals or fewer. While the margin was a landslide in comparison to the Cardiac 'Chos' typical scorelines — 12 of Santa Barbara's last 19 games have come down to one or two goals — there was plenty of drama as the boys in Blue and Gold put together a second-half comeback to forge their three-goal victory out of what was a three-goal deficit at halftime. Brock Zamanian led the offense with four goals and three assists, earning Big West Player of the Week honors in the process, while Levi Lentin matched his career high with 17 saves in goal, the first time hitting that number in regulation. Charlie Johnson, Luke Redoutey and Danilo Dragovic played key roles themselves, all finishing the day with three goals and an assist.
 
GAUCHOS TO KNOW
Saturday heroes Zamanian, Lentin and Redoutey are three of the nine student-athletes whom UC Santa Barbara will celebrate on Senior Day, with Ryan McManigal, Kyle Rosenblatt, Griffin Pieretti, Sam McKenzie, Sean O'Brien and Billy Rankin to join them. All nine Gauchos were part of the 2023 squad which reached The Big West Championship match and are the last remaining members of the Santa Barbara team that hosted the 2022 Golden Coast Conference Championship. Most of them have made a swan song of their final seasons, especially Zamanian and McKenzie, both of whom have points totals north of 60 this year. With 51 goals on the season and 154 in his career, Zamanian is two scores away from both a new single-season career high and a spot among the program's top 10 career scorers. McKenzie has already obliterated his single-season career high, his 41 goals nearly double his previous best of 22. The same can be said of Redoutey's 25 and Rankin's 22 as the pair have taken elevated roles supporting the scoring. And as for Lentin in the goal, 2025 has been a continuation of an already excellent career in Blue and Gold; in September he became just the eighth Gaucho goalie to reach 500 saves in his career.
 
But the seniors have not had to do it all by themselves, with Dragovic and Johnson leading a strong group of youngsters. Dragovic's 59 goals lead not only the team but the entire Big West, and his 78 total points also top the conference charts. In the middle, Kai Ross and Camren Simoncelli have taken on the task of replacing the output of 2024 All-American Dom Brown and 2023 All-American Dash McFarland by recreating them in the aggregate, combining to score 66 goals between them. The true freshman Johnson has 40 goals all by himself and leads the team with 22 assists. Redshirt freshman Tyler Roller is right behind him, with 21 helpers.
 
SCOUTING THE TROJANS
No. 1 USC did not slip down to sixth because, to put it simply, they have hardly slipped at all this season. The Trojans retained the top spot in the national rankings despite challenges from conference rivals California and Stanford, USC holding both the Golden Bears and Cardinal under 10 goals in a pair of wins at their Uytengsu Aquatics Center. The Trojans have lost only twice on the season, neither of which were at home.
 
Serbian freshman Strahinja Krstic continued his strong rookie seasons for USC and earned his fourth Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Newcomer of the Week award after his efforts over the weekend; he has only been kept off the scoresheet in two of his 19 games this season. Fellow freshman Efe Naipoglu, an import from Türkiye, has also won the award twice. However, the Trojans also have a veteran one-two punch in Serbian senior Mihailo Vukazic and Spanish junior Robert Lopez Duart, both of whom have over 40 goals on the season. When these two teams met on the season's opening weekend, Duart and Krstic scored four times and Vukazic and Naipoglu three.
 
SCOUTING THE TITANS
Cal State Fullerton is the only Big West school not ranked in this week's Collegiate Water Polo Association poll, though that distinction may be a bit harsh on the Titans, who will finish the regular season with a record no worse than .500 for the first time since they brought back the sport in 2023. While they are still hunting their first ranked win, the Titans have knocked off a Concordia Irvine team that was receiving votes in the national polls at the time, though they also have a loss against the Division-II Golden Eagles on their ledger from the season's opening weekend. They will play Concordia for a third time on Friday night before coming to visit the Gauchos.
 
In Turkish graduate student Togan Ozbek, the Titans have their first program legend since their return to the pool. While he has taken a back seat in scoring with just 11 goals this year after a 58-goal campaign in 2023 and 48 in 2024, he remains sixth on the team in total points thanks to his 43 assists. Junior Andrew Barnuevo has taken on the scoring duties, tallying 59 goals for what is already at least a modern-era Titans record. When Santa Barbara and Fullerton last met, in Orange County last season, the Gauchos held the Titans to just six goals, their third-lowest total of the year.
 
WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH
What is Santa Barbara's final weekend of the regular season gets underway at 1 p.m. on Saturday from USC's Uytengsu Aquatics Center in Los Angeles, with Sunday's Senior Day and regular-season finale starting at 12 noon from Santa Barbara High School. UC Santa Barbara will honor its nine graduating seniors prior to Sunday's match, with the ceremony beginning at approximately 11:45 a.m. Both of this weekend's matches will be live-streamed, Saturday's on overnght.com and Sunday's on ESPN+ and both matches will have live stats available at ucsbgauchos.com/MWP_Stats.