Sykes leads Long Beach State against UCSB

Long Beach State Beach (2-6) at UCSB Gauchos (6-2)

Santa Barbara, California; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Long Beach State visits UCSB after Gavin Sykes scored 30 points in Long Beach State’s 76-72 win against the San Diego Toreros.

The Gauchos are 3-1 on their home court. UCSB is eighth in the Big West with 23.3 defensive rebounds per game led by Zion Sensley averaging 5.6.

The Beach are 0-4 in road games. Long Beach State has a 1-3 record in games decided by 10 points or more.

UCSB is shooting 46.4% from the field this season, 2.4 percentage points lower than the 48.8% Long Beach State allows to opponents. Long Beach State’s 42.9% shooting percentage from the field this season is 4.0 percentage points lower than UCSB has given up to its opponents (46.9%).

The matchup Thursday is the first meeting of the season between the two teams in conference play.

TOP PERFORMERS: Miro Little is scoring 13.0 points per game and averaging 5.3 rebounds for the Gauchos. Aidan Mahaney is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers.

Sykes is shooting 48.3% and averaging 14.8 points for the Beach. Petar Majstorovic is averaging 12.6 points.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.