Image Is Not Everything for the Gauchos

It has been about shaking the image. Not that the image of Santa Barbara is anything at which to sneer.

Palm trees. Blue skies. Sandy beaches. It is an area that treats partying as a sport.

But at UC Santa Barbara, that party image didn’t translate well to the basketball court. When things got tough, the nice, laid-back Gauchos could be pushed around.

“Sure, we have that reputation as a party school,” said Santa Barbara swingman Branduinn Fullove. “We’ve had to show people that we’re not a bunch of punk boys from Southern California.”

It has been 12 years since the Gauchos took part in March Madness. Back then, they didn’t need to rely on winning the Big West Conference tournament to get in. They never reached the tournament final but the league was so highly regarded that they received at-large berths in 1988 and 1990 after 20-win seasons.

These days, in a weaker Big West, only the conference tournament winner gets an NCAA berth. And on Saturday night, Utah State erased Santa Barbara’s nine-point lead in the second half and looked as if it was ready to claim a third consecutive conference title.

The Gauchos then showed some traits not normally associated with Santa Barbara basketball--grit and determination.

Nick Jones helped them regain the lead with a three-point play. Mike Vukovich, a senior who had struggled all season, had two key baskets. After Utah State tied the score with 2:33 left on Ronnie Ross’ three-point basket, Mark Hull responded with a baseline move for a layup that gave the Gauchos the lead for good.

After Jacoby Atako and Fullove teamed to make five of six free throws, the Gauchos (20-10) were back in the spotlight. They play third-seeded Arizona in an NCAA West Regional first-round game tonight at Albuquerque.

“The road could not have been sweeter,” Santa Barbara Coach Bob Williams said. “You want to prove yourself against the best and we did that.”

Williams, in his fourth season, has told his players in recent weeks to “enjoy the fight.” They’ve rallied around that theme.

*

At the end of a game at Long Beach State three weeks ago, the teams got into a brief melee. It was broken up quickly and no players were suspended.

But it did something for the Santa Barbara psyche.

“I think they just stood up for their team,” Williams said. “We have been pushed around a little bit.”

Said Fullove: “We’re a family. We showed we were going to stick up for each other. We weren’t going to back down to anyone.”

The Gauchos lost that game. Two days later, they were playing UC Irvine, a team that had dominated them in recent years.

Williams saw a transformation that occurred over those two days. As a tight game drew to an end, he took the time to note the change during a timeout.

“With two minutes to go, I sat the guys down in a huddle,” he said. “I put the clipboard down and just told them how proud I was about how they had grown up.”

They also lost that game, but they haven’t lost since.

There are no true stars on this team, unlike the days of Eric McArthur, Lucius Davis and Carrick DeHart; Hull and Fullove are the leading scorers at just over 14 points a game.

*

But this team made its mark with defense.

Santa Barbara has been among the nation’s leaders in field-goal percentage defense this season. Teams are shooting only 38% against them and only once did a team make more than half of its attempts.

That may be what keeps the Gauchos--who haven’t beaten a Pacific 10 Conference team since 1989--in the game against Arizona.

This team also has a symbiotic relationship with its dapper coach. Williams put it together by getting players from Southern California that often were considered second- or third-tier recruits.

Jones and reserve B.J. Ward were teammates at Oxnard Santa Clara High. Fullove is from Simi Valley. Vukovich played at Santa Ana Mater Dei. Atako is from Santa Monica High and Hull went to Glendale Hoover. Reserve J.J. Todd is from West Hills Chaminade. Chrismen Oliver, a walk-on who had two key baskets against Utah State, is from Playa del Rey St. Bernard.

“It shows that you don’t have to have top-notch recruits from out of state to be a good team,” Jones said. The 48-year-old Williams relates to this group because he has been an underdog for much of his career. He was cut from his high school’s freshman team.

A former high school coach in San Jose, he spent eight seasons as a coach on the junior college level before becoming an assistant at Pepperdine.

Then it was eight seasons at UC Davis culminating in a Division II national championship.

Now Williams has developed a team in his image. Smooth and likable on the outside, tough and gritty on the inside.

“We kind of have a choir-boy look,” he said. “All of a sudden, we’ve developed a backdoor alley mentality.”

That’s the new image of UC Santa Barbara basketball.