The UCSB men’s basketball team (6-4) won its third straight home game Sunday night, defeating Florida A&M (2-9) 73-62.
Outside of a medley of highlight plays, the headline of the night was senior center Amadou Sow becoming just the fourth Gaucho to ever reach 1300 points and 700 rebounds in a career.
A nine-point, 10-rebound performance from Sow has propelled him to 1,351 points and 706 rebounds in his career, joining Alan Williams, Doug Rex, and Chris Devine in the 1300 point-700 rebound club.
Four Gauchos notched double figures, with Ajay Mitchell leading with 13 points and Miles Norris, Ajare Sanni and Sekou Touré all scoring 10
Touré’s scoring line is his best performance since the 2019-20 season, going 4-for-5 from the field, and his seven boards are a season-high.
Calvin Wishart added seven points and led all players with eight assists while Robinson Idehen had eight points, sending down a pair of highlight alley-oops.
UCSB outrebounded FAMU 41-30 and remained undefeated when winning the rebound battle.
The Gauchos outshot the Rattlers 60.0% to 42.3% in the opening period making 18 total field goals and holding the lead for over 15 minutes.
UCSB was hot out of the gate, jumping out to a 9-2 lead, but FAMU was quick to mount a run of its own, taking a 15-13 lead with 11 minutes to go.
That would be the final time that the Rattlers led in the Sunday evening battle, as the Gauchos won the final 10 minutes of the half by a wide margin.
UCSB rattled off a 28-6 run and stretched the lead out to as many as 20 to go into the locker room up 18 at 41-23.
The visiting Rattlers won the second period, but it was not enough to overcome the first half deficit that the host Gauchos put in play.
FAMU cut the lead to single digits with under a minute to go, but the Gauchos managed to make a bulk of their crucial free throws, including their last nine-straight.
Sanni made four in a single trip thanks to a Rattler technical foul and also led the half in scoring for the Gauchos with eight.
UCSB now closes out the non-conference season at home Wednesday afternoon when the Gauchos host Idaho State (2-8) at 1 p.m. Big West Conference play begins on the road on December 30 at UC San Diego.
Daniel Moebus-Bowles works in communications/media relations at UCSB.
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