Under The Radar Game of the Day – Monday, January 16th

UC-Santa Barbara (13-3, 4-1) at UC-Irvine (12-5, 5-0) – 9:00 PM ET (ESPN+)

Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day goes west to the Big West for one of the conference’s marquee matchups between the UCSB Gauchos and the UC-Irvine Anteaters. It’s not the heyday of the Big West where UNLV was king of the mountain and teams like New Mexico State, UCSB and Long Beach State got occasional at-large bids, but there’s a good chance of the conference at least getting multiple postseason bids. Last time out, the Gauchos missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer against UC-Riverside at home before losing their first game in conference play 65-64.

UC-Irvine had a slump in December where they lost 4 out of 5 games (and this was after a decisive win at Oregon), the most devastating being a close loss at San Diego State. Since then, the Anteaters have won 5 straight in Big West play going into the toughest homestand of the year where they host UCSB and Hawai’i. Dawson Baker had 11 points in UC-Irvine’s 71-57 win at Cal State-Northridge.