I have a strong feeling that this line won't even matter. These teams met twice this season and each team winning at home. problem I see is Fullerton's win at home was a bit of fools gold..A very tough spot for the Gauchos in that game..They had a 3 game road set and a bit of a letdown/lookahead going into that Fullerton game..No suck thing here...UCSB shot like crap in that game and it wasn't because Fullerton is great on defense...Fullerton ranks #171 on defense and UCSB ranks #148....FG% wise, UCSB ranks #101...Fullerton #97...So these teams can shoot about the same% so we can rely on the better defense stepping up in the box score..That's our side.....Rebounds UCSB is #12 and Fullerton #168...That's a big gap....Here is why Fullerton really struggles though...It's the fact that they stink at assisting the basketball and they don't shoot 3's....You need a team to be able to shoot that shot and to get open as well...Gauchos are solid at 3pt defense ranking #26 in the nation...So if Fullerton falls behind, how do they catch up....They don't have many options...
UCSB wins at the free throw line...the 3pt line and the inside.
A area i think shows up here tonight..Turnovers..UCSB is solid in that area and Fullerton is not.
Another area is the offensive rebounds...I think this area if we win this area and looking at the rebounding stats, says that we will...It will afford UCSB a bunch of extra looks in this game..That's really all we need to cover this spread...Plus we get about 85% of the stats in our favor...We also get the motivation here...Reason being is UCSB actually thinks it can win this tournament..They probably end up playing Irvine, but they have to put the kids to sleep here first...I know UCSB is a good team and they can compete with Irvine..Fullerton really can't compete with either of those two teams.
The game in UCSB opened -4....Game in Fullerton opened UCSB -1....So this line indicates to me, that it's being based off old lines and old outcomes..Not so much stats and what we found with the bad spot, bad shooting day in that first matchup.
Not saying blowout, but a convincing win here looks solid to me.