HENDERSON, Nev. — The UC Santa Barbara Women's Basketball team (18-12, 12-8 Big West) saw four of its members earn All-Big West Awards on Tuesday, 24 hours before their Big West Championship First Round game against Cal Poly (13-17, 8-12 Big West). Skylar Burke was named the conference's Best Hustle Player and earned an All-Defensive Team nod and All-Big West Honorable Mention. Zoe Borter also earned All-Big West Honorable Mention, while Alyssa Marin was named to the all-conference Second Team and Olivia Bradley to the All-Freshman Team.
 
The Gauchos earned the No. 5 seed for The Big West Championship, setting them up to face No. 8 seed Cal Poly in the first round, a fixture whose winner will get to claim bragging rights in the Blue-Green Rivalry for this season, with each team having won on the other's home floor this year.
 
THE HONORS
In her fifth and final year as a Gaucho, Marin led Santa Barbara to 18 wins, leading the team in scoring. She averaged 14 points per game, fifth in The Big West, including back-to-back 31-point performances against Nevada and San Jose State in November. She also dropped 29 on UC San Diego to lead the Gauchos to victory in their conference opener, then hung 20 on Cal State Bakersfield in January and 23 on CSUN on Senior Night to finish the regular season with 23 double-digit outings. When Marin attacks the rim, defenders have a choice between giving Santa Barbara's top scorer a free look or fouling her. Exceedingly often, they chose the latter; Marin led The Big West and ranked 12^th nationally in free throw attempts (215), making 184 of them — the most in The Big West and eighth-most in the country — to rank as the top free throw shooter on the country's best free-throw shooting team.
 
There was only one other Gaucho to start all 30 games alongside Marin, and that was the sophomore Borter, who had a breakout campaign en route to an All-Big West Honorable Mention, averaging 9.2 points per game. She announced her presence with a career-high 22 points against Seattle U in November and provided clutch performance after clutch performance once the calendar flipped from 2024 to 2025. She contributed 16 points in the Gauchos' upset win over UC Davis on the road in January and had her first 20-point outing in conference play to lead Santa Barbara's comeback win over CSUN. She was also the Gauchos' top scorer the last time they saw Cal Poly, one of four Santa Barbara players to put up double digits in the 63-60 win. The sophomore rarely came off the floor for coach Renee Jimenez, averaging the second-most minutes per game in the conference this season, 33.0.
 
While Borter almost never left the floor, her teammate Burke almost never stopped moving. The junior from Idaho turned in a third straight year of scrappy yet electrifying play in 2024-25 to earn The Big West Best Hustle Player award, along with an all-conference Honorable Mention and a spot on The Big West All-Defensive Team. The defining stat of Burke's season is that she led the Gauchos and ranked ninth in the conference in rebounding, averaging 6.2 per game, despite standing just 5-foot-8, making her the shortest member of the conference's top 10 rebounders by three inches. She pulled down 11 boards as part of her phenomenal double-double against Long Beach State in which she also scored 25 points on perfect 9-of-9 shooting. It was one of three 20-point performances for Burke this year, with the others coming at home against the University of San Diego and on the road at Hawai'i. A tenacious on-ball defender, Burke also led the Gauchos in steals and is particularly adept at drawing charges. In fact, one of the few times she stops moving is to set her feet in the lane to earn the offensive foul.
 
Rounding out Santa Barbara's triumvirate of B's, Bradley finished the season with a surge of success after returning from injury in December. The Australian averaged 6.2 points per game in conference play, putting up double digits in four of her last six, including a career-best 18 at home against Long Beach State as part of her first career double-double. That performance against the Beach showed everything the young Bradley can be for the Gauchos: a strong rebounder at 6-foot-1 and a three-level scorer at the other end of the court. She shot 6-of-10 from the field, going 2-of-2 from beyond the arc and 4-of-4 at the free-throw line in the game and finished the regular season as Santa Barbara's most accurate shooter, making 45% of her shots over her 20 games. She was a key piece of the Gauchos' road win over Cal Poly at the end of February, scoring 11 points with eight rebounds.
 
THE MATCHUP
Santa Barbara will be looking to repeat the result from that Feb. 27 meeting with arch rivals Cal Poly when they meet in The Big West Championship First Round on Wednesday, the first postseason installment of the Blue-Green Rivalry since 2013. The Mustangs finished as the No. 8 seed, going 8-12 in conference play and 13-17 on the season. They have two representatives on All-Big West teams this season: their dynamic duo of Annika Shah and Mary Carter, who received Second Team and Honorable Mention honors, respectively. Shah was Cal Poly's leading scorer this season and put up 18 in that Feb. 27 game. An eager three-point shooter, no Big West player launched from beyond the arc more than Shah this season, taking 199 three-point attempts and making 79 of them for a .397 three-point percentage. Carter likes to launch from deep too, making 52 of her 152 three-point attempts this season. She comes into Wednesday's game hot, having scored 23, 17, and 27 points over her last three games. The Gauchos were able to contain her in both regular season meetings, allowing her just nine points in each game.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
Santa Barbara and Cal Poly will be the first teams to take the floor for The Big West Championship in Henderson, tipping off at 12 noon on Wednesday at Lee's Family Forum. Tickets are on sale now, and fans can catch all the action wherever they are by watching live on ESPN+ or with live stats at ucsbgauchos.com/WBBLiveStats.