NCAA Tournament March Madness

#156 UC Santa Barbara

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Projection: need to automatically qualify

UC Santa Barbara has enough solid moments to keep the committee paying attention but not the kind of statement wins that remove all doubt, with bright spots like road victories at Cal State Sacramento and Cal State Bakersfield and neutral wins over Lehigh and Seattle counterbalanced by damaging setbacks at Nevada and at Wisconsin Green Bay and a lopsided neutral loss to Utah Valley as well as road defeats at Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge and a home loss to UC Davis. The remaining slate offers several home opportunities against Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine and UC Riverside that should help steady the résumé, yet it also contains resume-lightening trips to UC San Diego, Long Beach State and Hawaii that would be hard to overcome if they go poorly. With a résumé that mixes respectable league wins and troubling away results and without a marquee nonconference scalp to erase those blemishes, the cleanest and most reliable route into the NCAA tournament is to secure the Big West title.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/8San Jose St250W85-74
11/11@CS Sacramento282W92-87
11/17Loy Marymount155L78-74
11/22@Nevada65L77-64
11/28(N)Lehigh307W72-70
11/29(N)Seattle123W74-71
12/4Long Beach St229W84-77
12/6CS Bakersfield306W109-84
12/13(N)Utah Valley103L68-53
12/17@WI Green Bay238L67-64
12/22Portland196W79-61
1/1@CS Fullerton202L95-84
1/3@CS Northridge204L74-65
1/8UC Davis165L93-86
1/15@CS Bakersfield306W75-69
1/17Hawaii100W77-62
1/22Cal Poly24577%
1/24@Long Beach St22954%
1/29@UC San Diego10426%
1/31CS Fullerton20270%
2/5@UC Davis16541%
2/7UC Irvine12553%
2/12@UC Riverside27363%
2/14@Cal Poly24557%
2/19CS Northridge20471%
2/22@Hawaii10025%
2/26UC Riverside27382%
2/28@UC Irvine12532%
3/7UC San Diego10446%