FOLLOWING THE CROWD : Winning Is Getting to Be a Habit at UC Santa Barbara

Five years ago, shortly after he became UC Santa Barbara’s basketball coach, Jerry Pimm stood on the court in the school’s 6,000-seat Campus Events Center, looked around and said, “We’re going to have to expand this place in a few years.”

The people who had lured Pimm away from Utah to revive their once-proud basketball program must have had to swallow a laugh. After all, they were hoping for a few victories, not miracles.

When Mark Bockelman, the North Carolina State sports information director, walked into the seven-year-old facility last month, he said, “This place is cute . We don’t see bleachers too often in the Atlantic Coast Conference.”

The place lost all its charm for the Wolfpack entourage a few hours later, however, after the Gauchos had romped to a 96-78 upset in front of--you guessed it--a standing-room-only crowd that surely exceeded the 6,000 the fire marshal says is maximum capacity.

And, as Pimm is quick to point out with an unabashed told-you-so grin, UC Santa Barbara officials are seriously considering opening the old gym for closed-circuit television broadcasts to handle the overflow of fans at home games.

Guard Brian Shaw, who had a triple-double--22 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists--against North Carolina State, is even working on a catchy nickname for the Gauchos’ home, a Spartan but clean and intimate facility.

“Pimm’s Pit is kind of obvious, but somebody called it Pimm’s Palace and I like that a little better,” Shaw said.

“There’s a new atmosphere at school, I can tell, because this year when I walk into class, everyone knows me. It’s starting to blossom into something where people really want to come to the games.”

Now, the folks from the ACC may not find that such a novel idea--someone has to die before you can get season tickets to some ACC schools--but Shaw’s idea is radical thinking for this campus.

Located literally yards from the ocean, the Campus Events Center was thought of merely as an obstruction of the scenery by many. They used to play weekend day games here and well-intentioned fans would take one look at the beach and play hooky from the game.

Santa Barbara is averaging 3,360 in six home games this season, which is a most modest figure on a national scale, but well ahead of last season’s record pace of 2,544. The Gauchos were 16-13 overall and finished tied for second with a 10-8 mark in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. last season. And they were 12-2 at home.

Of course, there’s no secret formula involved in Santa Barbara’s recent success at the gate.

The Gauchos have won 10 of 11 games, with victories over Oregon State and Pepperdine to string up next to the win over North Carolina State and Thursday’s upset of 13th-ranked Nevada Las Vegas. It was the Rebels’ first loss of the season, their first loss at home in almost two years and their first loss ever to Santa Barbara.

The Gauchos’ only setback was a 75-65 loss to Stanford in the first round of the Hoosier Classic. They led by 12 in the second half of that one.

Santa Barbara figured to be competitive, but no one thought it would be breaking into any top 20 polls, which it very well may next week. Every coach on the West Coast knew that the Gauchos’ three-guard offense was equipped with the talent and depth to wreak havoc from the perimeter. The Gauchos’ inexperienced post players were supposed to be the weak link.

They were half right.

THE EXPECTED

Shaw and three Los Angeles-area athletes--Carrick DeHart and Carlton Davenport from Santa Monica High School and Brian Johnson from Montebello High--have lived up to the great expectations for the outside game, totaling an average of 46 points a game.

Shaw, a 6-foot 6-inch senior point guard who leads the PCAA in rebounding at 10.6 a game, is second in assists with a 6.2 average and still manages to average 13.8 points. He’s often the beginning and the end of the Gaucho offense. He’s the man with the ball in the crunch, the man Pimm wants on the line with the game on the line.

“I’ve never seen anyone like Brian,” said DeHart, who was the conference freshman of the year last season. “He’s so versatile. He’s unique. Well maybe not unique. He’s another Magic.”

And Shaw’s magic has meant that the Gauchos are getting well acquainted with winnin’ time. One game, he’s scoring 22 and grabbing 20 rebounds, the next--such as Thursday night in Las Vegas--he’s concentrating on harassing the opponent’s key offensive player. UNLV’s Gerald Paddio, who is averaging 21.2 points a game, made 1 of 13 shots and finished with 6 points.

“What can you say about Brian?” Pimm asks. “He scores inside and outside, he plays great defense, he handles the ball and you know about his rebounding. It’s not like he plays under there, he just sort of migrates under there. He has a nose for the ball.”

Shaw said that point guard is a great position for offensive rebounding because he gets a clear path to the boards.

“Teams don’t look to block me out when I’m on top, so I just follow the flight of the ball,” he said, shrugging. “And coach lets me stay and pressure the ball so I don’t have to get back down court in a hurry.”

Let’s see--you only need half your team to neutralize Shaw. One guy to keep him off the boards, another to keep him from penetrating and dishing off, and maybe another to stay in his face and stuff his jumper.

And one guy has to hound DeHart, who, without much effort, leads the team in scoring with a 16-point average that could be considerably higher. He’s taking an average of just 11 shots a game.

“DeHart’s not the freshman of the year-type who thinks he knows it all,” Pimm said. “He listens and has a great attitude because he wants to improve.

“Once in a while, he’ll get out of control because he’s so gifted. But he free-lances only early (during a possession) in the open court and late, when time is running out. The rest of the time, he looks to run the offense. He could be taking a lot more shots.”

So, when you have exhausted most of your resources trying to semi-contain those two, starting guard No. 3, Brian Johnson, pops in a three-pointer. Johnson, who is averaging 9.1 points, made 87 three-pointers last season and two crucial ones in the second half against Las Vegas.

Or backup point guard Carlton Davenport, the team’s fourth-leading scorer with a 6.8 average, comes in to run the offense, and the Gauchos’ don’t miss a beat.

THE UNEXPECTED

Pimm, whose teams are traditionally strong underneath, was worrying about this team’s lack of experience at the post positions the day after the Gauchos had lost by a point to San Jose State in the PCAA tournament last spring.

He didn’t know who would be starting, but figured Greg Trygstad, a 6-8 forward who had been named to the PCAA all-freshman team, would be the top candidate for one of the spots.

But Trygstad separated his shoulder in a summer biking accident. Then he broke a finger. Then he got bronchitis. Then he bruised his thigh. Just now, he’s beginning to contribute.

As it turned out, Eric McArthur, a 6-6 sophomore who missed five games early last season because of a broken finger, and Gary Gray, a 6-6 freshman who was the Los Angeles 3-A City player of the year at Granada Hills, beat out 6-10 junior John Westbeld and 6-8 sophomore Mike Doyle for the starting jobs.

But it wasn’t easy.

Pimm decided that since his big men were low on game experience, they would be high on practice time. So the post players started reporting at 8 a.m. for their first practice of the day.

“We started working out twice a day with the big guys and it’s helped,” Pimm said. “We’ve had the time, with the (vacation) break from school, and the players have shown the enthusiasm and stamina to make the two-a-days pay off.

“We’ve been OK underneath and there has been steady improvement, as you’d expect as raw talent starts to move toward potential. But we need to continue the improvement inside, especially in terms of execution and reading of defenses. We’re still not playing at the level we can.”

McArthur, who is averaging 8.1 points and 4.5 rebounds, says he and Gray--6.4 points and 3 rebounds--are just beginning to feel comfortable together and are starting to anticipate one another’s moves.

“When Gary and I first started the season, our timing was way off,” said McArthur, who was All-Southern Section at South Pasadena High. “But we’ve worked hard. All those early morning practices are starting to seem worthwhile. We’re starting to jell.

“But you can’t forget that the play of our perimeter people makes things a lot easier for us. Teams have to watch out for them.”

It’s getting to be a vicious cycle for the Gauchos’ opponents.

“Pretty soon, people will have to stop taking our inside people for granted,” Shaw said, smiling.

Then what? A 20-win season? A trip to the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament? And, since they already have beaten Las Vegas, why not a non-Rebel PCAA champion for a change?

Pimm will say there’s still a long way to go, but Santa Barbara, which completes a five-game trip tonight at Cal State Fullerton, will have just six more road games this season. Nine times, the Gauchos will be back in that ever-quaint but no longer quiet Campus Events Center, where they have yet to play a game while the students were not on either Thanksgiving or Christmas break.

If you want to see this team, you may have to settle for a seat in old Robertson Gym, where you can watch the Gauchos on closed-circuit television.