UCSB's Stunning Ride to the NCAA Men's Final Four

Who is the gaucho amigo?
Why is he standing,
In your spangled leather poncho,
And your elevator shoes?

-- "Gaucho," Steely Dan (1980)

So unexpected is the University of California, Santa Barbara's run to the NCAA men's Final Four that many observers (figuratively) will be singing "Who are those Gauchos?" in the spirit of the old Steely Dan song, as the competition gets underway Thursday night in State College, Pennsylvania.

UCSB finished seventh in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), but put together an improbable run in the conference tournament that included successive wins over second-place BYU, sixth-place Long Beach State (which had eliminated third-place Stanford), and first-place USC for the championship.

Because the powers that be in college volleyball (as well as other sports) apparently deem it more appropriate to award an automatic NCAA tournament bid to the winner of a one-week conference tournament rather than a three-month conference season, UCSB received the MPSF's automatic bid to the Final Four. USC, as the nation's top-ranked team all season, received the single at-large berth, with host Penn State qualifying for the Final Four via the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association and Ohio State, via its counterpart league for the Midwest.

On Thursday's opening night, No. 1 seed USC gets an immediate rematch with No. 4 UCSB, and No. 2 Penn State faces No. 3 Ohio State. The championship match is Saturday night.

Considering my build-up in the above paragraphs about Santa Barbara, my statistical focus in this posting naturally examines the Gauchos' play in winning the MPSF tournament. As I frequently do, I put the spotlight on hitting percentage. In this instance, I compare UCSB's hitting percentage to its opponent's in nine specific matches: the Gauchos' MPSF tournament wins over BYU, Long Beach State, and USC, and their MPSF conference-season matches (two apiece) against those same schools.

My first chart below (on which you may click to enlarge) plots the numerical value (UCSB hitting percentage - opponent hitting percentage) for each match. A positive value, of course, means that the Gauchos outhit their opponent; the neutral point (.000) is depicted as a heavy white horizontal line to aid viewing. A negative value means that UCSB was outhit by its opponent in a particular match. The W or L displays whether the Gauchos won or lost the match.

As an example, the first time Santa Barbara played USC this season (January 26), the Gauchos hit at a healthy .337 clip, but the Trojans attacked at a torrid .493 rate, leaving UCSB at negative .156 relative to USC. At the teams' second match (April 16), the Gauchos narrowed the gap to negative .066 (.327 vs. .393). When UCSB and USC met for the third time, in the MPSF tourney final, the Gauchos turned the tables on the Trojans, outhitting them by positive .080 (.395 to .315).

The main conclusion I would draw from this first chart is that, particularly when facing Long Beach State and USC, Santa Barbara's hitting success relative to its opponent steadily went up from the Gauchos' first match against a given team, to their second match, to their third (MPSF tourney) match.

Hitting .395 in the MPSF tourney final against USC was no easy task for the Gauchos. As seen in the next chart, four of UCSB's five most frequently called upon hitters recorded attack percentages ranging from .396 to .500, and the fifth hit a perfectly respectable .312. The Gauchos' workhorse, 6-6 outside hitter Jeff Menzel, took 41.1% of his team's spike attempts (53 of 129) in the MPSF final and still maintained a superb .396 average, with 28 kills and only 7 errors.

Even with such great overall hitting in the MPSF final, UCSB still barely beat USC, 16-14 in the fifth game. It seems unlikely the Gauchos can replicate such a performance against 'SC tomorrow night, but that's what they play the matches for.

To get a feel for USC's season to date, a couple of earlier postings of mine should be helpful (here, here, and here). I don't really have too much to say about Penn State and Ohio State at this point, other than that they split two matches with each other during the year (each winning on its home court). Ohio State went 2-4 against MPSF teams (Pepperdine, Cal State Northridge, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego), whereas Penn State went 3-4, including a win over UCSB (the Nittany Lions' other MPSF opponents were UCLA, Hawai'i, Irvine, Northridge, and Long Beach State).

I will chime in during the Final Four with statistical analyses. My fellow volleyball blogger Vinnie Lopes at Off the Block has been providing excellent general coverage in previewing the men's Final Four and I have no doubt he will continue to do so throughout the tournament.