University of California, Santa Barbara

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — When trying to out-run a Wolf Pack, it helps to have a head start. The UC Santa Barbara Men's Basketball team turned in a great first-half performance then made the lead stick with crucial late-game scoring from CJ Shaw and clutch free-throw shooting all around. After holding a 40-24 edge at the break, the Gauchos came away with a 76-63 win to improve to 3-0 on the season.
 
QUOTABLE
Head coach Joe Pasternack on the team's performance: "I thought we had a terrific first half," Pasternack said. "Our guys were really ratcheted up for this game, didn't play well at their place (in 2025-26), and held them to 28% from the field… Unfortunately, our team has to learn how to play for 40 minutes. We don't know how to do that right now. It's a major issue, and they came back with a vengeance, and they're a really good team. Give them credit. They're an NCAA tournament team, I believe. I think they're the best team in the Mountain West, but we have to learn how to be disciplined and compete and not play the scoreboard. For us, there is no scoreboard, and we played for 20 minutes and that was it, and that's not good enough for what we're trying to do."
 
Pasternack on the team's free-throw shooting down the stretch: "We work on free throws every day in competitive high-stakes environments and we say free throws win championships," Pasternack said. "I thought Miro Little didn't play very well tonight, but what he did do is he went 10-of-10 from the line when it mattered. He was unbelievable at the free throw line. And we did 25 for 30. We don't do that, we don't win this game."
 
Aidan Mahaney on the importance of Wednesday's game: "I think we got a lot of room to grow," Mahaney said. "It was nice for me, we brought in a lot of new pieces, and to see how they all fit in. I mean, RJ Smith was a plus-16 on the box score even though he didn't have a crazy number game, which is huge. KK (Tong), who's been here for five years was big time with eight rebounds, so just seeing a lot of guys — V (Viljami Vartiainen) was really good. So, just seeing a lot of guys step up was huge for us."
 
Mahaney on CJ Shaw's late-game performance: "CJ Shaw, last year and this year is our closer," Mahaney said. "When we need buckets late in the game and we want to go to the rim, it's CJ Shaw, and the sooner he realizes that he's our closer, the better it will be for us, but that's what he's here to do. He's a high, high-major dude and a professional basketball player that's playing in college right now. We need to give him the ball late."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Gauchos opened Wednesday night's game having to literally run with the Wolf Pack, as the teams traded possessions frenetically. Santa Barbara was happy to shoot three-pointers early and often, even when their first four attempts from beyond the arc missed. But when Shaw put down attempt number five, it gave the Gauchos a 7-6 lead and from that point on — just four minutes into the game — they would not trail again. In fact, Santa Barbara only let Nevada tie the scores once after the game's first media timeout, that was at 8-8. By the next timeout, the Gauchos were up 16-9, with back-to-back three-pointers from Antonio Chol and Viljami Vartiainen helping Santa Barbara leap ahead. The Gauchos took 16 of their 26 three-pointers in that first half, making six of them.
 
And the defense was firing too; Santa Barbara kept Nevada from making a field goal for over nine minutes to help run its lead up to 25-11 by the under-eight media timeout, a stretch highlighted offensively by Marvin McGhee IV putting home an easy layup after Aidan Mahaney threw a no-look pass to find his teammate's back-cut. Right after that timeout, a Wolf Pack airball had The Thunderdome crowd howling in delight, and that joy was rekindled when Chol and Mahaney hit back-to-back three-pointers from the top of the arc to send the home team into the final two minutes of the half with a 35-18 lead.
 
McGhee IV brought the Gauchos' total up to 40 by halftime with a three-point make of his own and then a drive to the rim that granted him two free throws, which he converted. Nevada did hit a buzzer-beating layup, but that only cut Santa Barbara's lead to 16 points, 40-24, at the halfway point of the game. And even better, Shaw was in full attack mode coming out of the break, driving to the rack and finishing just 10 seconds after play restarted.
 
But from there, the Wolf Pack started to close in. The visitors made their first four field goals of the half for a 9-3 run, with a Mahaney three-pointer the only Gaucho score after Shaw's in over four minutes. After the first timeout of the half, RJ Smith finished off a couple of uglier offensive sequences with crucial layups, and Koat Keat Tong provided some good defense and a strong rebounding presence, but foul trouble threatened to let Nevada back into the game. The biggest cheer of the night came when the Wolf Pack missed back-to-back free throws, and the Gauchos' lead remained at 16 points after the first eight minutes of action.
 
Over the next eight minutes, the situation became most perilous for Santa Barbara. Tough shots started falling for the visitors, who also started drawing more fouls and forcing more turnovers. The Wolf Pack were within 10 with 7:12 left to play and got as close as six points with 4:43 left, at 60-54. Clutch blocks from Eric Dibami and Chol helped keep Santa Barbara ahead, and as the minutes ticked away, the Gauchos started ticking off free throws. Starting with Mahaney at 4:54, Santa Barbara made 14 consecutive free throws to end up pulling away again and finish off the win, with Miro Little scoring 10 of his 12 points from the charity stripe on the night and eight of those over the final three minutes of the game.
 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos conclude their season-opening homestand at The Thunderdome on Sunday, Nov. 15, when they host UC Merced at 1p.m.