It was Throwback Wednesday at the Thunderdome last week, when Cori Close recognized the seeds of UCSB’s success in women’s basketball.
“They out-toughed us; they out-hustled us,” said Close, the UCLA coach, even though her nationally ranked Bruins defeated the Gauchos, 71-52.
Close was a hustling Gaucho herself in 1992 and ’93, when she played on the first two UCSB women’s teams to reach the NCAA tournament. “They remind me of my senior year when we started out 0-6 and went on to win the Big West tournament,” she said of the current Gauchos, who came into the game with a 2-6 record.