Muristek
Senior center Miles Norris and junior guard Josh Pierre-Louis were fantastic Saturday afternoon lifting the UCSB Men’s Basketball team (9-9, 1-4) over UC San Diego (10-12) 84-48. The 36-point win is the largest margin of victory the Gauchos have had since the season opening 119-65 win over San Francisco State.
Senior forward Miles Norris led the Gauchos in scoring with a career-high 32 points going 13-for-16 from the field and 5-for-7 from deep to go with five rebounds and a steal. This comes just two games removed from his record-breaking nine three-pointers and a previous career-high of 31 at CSUN last week. He is the first player to have two 30+ point games since Max Heidegger in 2020.
Josh Pierre-Louis was also terrific from the field, scoring 12 on 6-of-7 shooting to go along with five steals, seven assists and three rebounds. He finished the game with an incredible plus-minus mark of 36.
Junior guard Calvin Wishart led all players with eight assists and senior center Amadou Sow led all players with seven boards.
The Gauchos were very efficient from the field, shooting 36-57 (63.2%) while holding the Tritons to just 37.5% from the field and 18.2% from three. UCSB also won the rebound battle 36-20 and outscored UCSD 46-28 in the paint.
Both teams were efficient to start, as UC San Diego shot 83% from the field (5-6) while UCSB shot 90% from the field (9-10), led by Miles Norris who was a perfect 3/3 for the Gauchos early on.
UC San Diego struggled on defense and with keeping possession of the basketball in the first half, turning the ball over 10 times and allowing UCSB to capitalize by scoring 19 points off turnovers.
The Gauchos went on an 18-2 run over the course of a three minute period as UCSD continued to struggle on both ends of the floor.
Norris was electric in the first half, scoring 21 on 8-of-9 from the field, including 4-of-5 from the three-point line, leading the Gauchos to take a commanding 22 point lead to end the half.
UCSD made only 39% of their shot attempts (9-23) and 22% of their 3 point shots (2-9) in the first half while the Gauchos went 20-27 (74.1%) from the field.
The Gauchos continued to keep their foot on the pedal as they increased their lead from the start of the second half to lead by over 30 points just minutes in.
UC San Diego took better care of the basketball early in the second half, but continued to struggle creating opportunities to score the ball.
Aside from the first three minutes of regulation, UCSB found themselves in the lead for the entirety of the game.
UC San Diego’s interior defense struggled to stop the Gauchos from scoring in the paint as more than half of UCSB’s points came from layups and dunks.
The UCSB Gauchos will now head back on the road to play Cal State Bakersfield Thursday night and rival Cal Poly Saturday evening.
Daniel Moebus-Bowles writes about sports for UCSB.
email: sports@newspress.com
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