A Big West battle in Irvine is the focus for us with today’s spotlight game preview. This is the latest game on the card with Cal Poly and Hawaii canceled and one that looks like a very competitive matchup.
UC Santa Barbara has taken the money in the overnight and early-morning betting action against UC Irvine, with a line move from Irvine -1.5 to UCSB -2.5 at BetOnline Sportsbook. That is a rather significant side move to cross zero and leave UCSB a clear favorite. The total on the game has fallen a couple of points since open from 136.5 to 134.5.
We’ll head west for this preview on a game that you can find on ESPN+.
UCSB Gauchos
This is the front end of a back-to-back at Irvine for UCSB. Joe Pasternack’s team is off to a rather disjointed 3-1 start. They beat St. Katherine in a lay-up opener to the season and then bested Loyola Marymount by 11, only to lose to Loyola Marymount by five points six days later. A week after that, UCSB topped Pepperdine with a really nice victory. Now, eight days later, the Gauchos will take the floor again. There is no telling what we’ll get from any of these teams with long layoffs, but UCSB has looked the part offensively in the three games against Division I competition. They’ve scored 1.067, 1.082, and 1.061 points per possession. Defensively, they had a hiccup against Loyola Marymount in the second game, as the Lions shot 28-of-53 from the floor. This was a pretty good UCSB team last season that split the two meetings with UC Irvine en route to a 10-6 record in Big West play. The Big West Tournament got canceled, but these two teams could very well have been on a crash course in that as well. Pacific transfer Ajare Sanni was ineligible last season, but he’s able to play this year and he’s 9-of-19 from 3 and 15-of-30 overall from the field to provide some scoring punch alongside fifth-year senior JaQuori McLaughlin. In D-I games, the Gauchos are shooting 42.2% from 3, but there are only three data points there and they’re facing an historically strong defensive team in the Anteaters.CLAIM YOUR WELCOME BONUS FROM BETONLINE SPORTSBOOK