Titan Women Face Top-Seeded UCSB in First Round

The Cal State Fullerton women’s basketball team has the difficult task of opening the Big West Conference tournament against top-seeded UC Santa Barbara at 3 p.m. today in the Long Beach Arena.

The conference-champion Gauchos (23-4) beat the eighth-place Titans (11-16) twice this season, 73-60 at Fullerton Jan. 2 and 78-60 at Santa Barbara Saturday.

All five Santa Barbara starters are averaging in double figures--senior forward Barbara Beainy (16.2), senior forward Erika Kienast (15.2), senior guard Lisa Crosskey (14.8), junior guard Cori Close (13.0) and junior forward Becky Brown (11.9).

Fullerton has shown, at times, that it’s capable of playing with the conference’s top teams. The Titans led second-place Cal State Long Beach by 25 points early in the second half Thursday before collapsing and losing, 69-64.

In other first-round games, fourth-seeded Hawaii (21-5) plays fifth-seeded Pacific (13-14) at 1 p.m., second-seeded Long Beach (19-8) plays seventh-seeded Fresno State (13-14) at 7 p.m., and third-seeded Nevada Las Vegas (16-9) plays sixth-seeded New Mexico State (15-13) at 9 p.m.