Women’s basketball aims to keep undefeated streak against UCSB

Returning home after an 86-50 away routing of Long Beach State, the women’s basketball team looks to improve to 3-0 after Thursday’s home matchup against UC Santa Barbara.

The Gauchos, another Big West team, will be looking for their first win of the season following a pair of single-digit defeats to Utah Valley and Cal State Bakersfield to kick off the season.

After narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament in 2017, the Gauchos went 12-17 in head coach Bonnie Hendrickson’s fourth season. Even though the Gauchos had a losing record, they put up a winning conference record of 9-7, matching the season before. The Gauchos are a team that the Trojans cannot underestimate, as they have made it to the postseason in 21 of the past 25 seasons.

UC Santa Barbara is led by sophomore guard Bri Anugwom and junior center Natalia Bruening. Despite two tough losses, the duo has combined for over 30 points per game. In addition, freshman guard Lauren Lee has had a quiet, yet efficient, start to her college career. She is the most involved freshman on the team, having played a total of 36 minutes and shooting 80 percent from the free throw line.

“I think it will be a good game,” head coach Mark Trakh said. “[UCSB is] usually on top of the Big West. It’s just going to be us going out there and taking care of what we do. We have to get more efficient on both offense and defense.”

The Women of Troy are led by a three-headed backcourt monster consisting of the Moore sisters, junior point guard Minyon Moore and senior guard Mariya Moore, and senior point guard Aliyah Mazyck. The trio accounted for 53 of the Trojan’s 86 points in Sunday’s win at Long Beach.

An important aspect of USC’s early season success has been the team’s defense. Through eight quarters of play, the team has forced over 40 turnovers and held opponents to under 15 points in six of those quarters. The anchors of the pesky Trojan defense are the same ones orchestrating things on the other side of the ball — Mazyck and  Minyon Moore.

Both Minyon Moore and Mazyck were members of the 2017-18 Pac-12 All-Defensive Team, with Mazyck impressing enough to be a finalist for the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year award. The defensive duo tallied six steals in their first outing together after Mazyck missed the first game of the season for undisclosed reasons.

“I don’t worry about them,” Trakh said. “How much they’re going to improve in the middle of the season is up to them. They need to keep playing the way they have been.”

Long Beach State’s Shanaijah Davison had scored 34 points the game before, but Mazyck held her to only 1 point.

Kicking off her senior season, Mazyck showed no signs of hesitation as she let it fly from all over on Sunday, leading the team in field goal (15), free-throw (6), and 3-point attempts (11). Expect that green light to shine even brighter as the senior guard takes place in her last opening night on Thursday.

Despite an undefeated record, the Trojans have had their fair share of early season woes.

Perhaps the most alarming of those woes for Trakh and Co. has to be the large numbers of turnovers. The team has blown out its first two opponents by an average of 27 points in spite of almost 17 nightly turnovers. While early-season miscues may be justifiable, more protection of the ball is expected from a team whose primary ball handlers, Mazyck and Minyon Moore, are upperclassmen.

Assisting them in offensive duties so far has been  Mariya Moore. The 2017 Naismith Trophy Watch List member is averaging 12 points per game on 38 percent shooting, but look for those numbers to increase as the Louisville transfer gets her feet back under her after a year of sitting on the sidelines.

The Women of Troy return home as they look to continue their undefeated season against the winless UC Santa Barbara team Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Galen Center.