UC San Diego’s Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones drained a 3-pointer to cap a 13-1 first-half run against UC Santa Barbara Thursday night.

He celebrated by yelling towards the Gauchos bench.

Bad move. Tait-Jones was assessed a technical foul, then received a chewing out from Tritons coach Eric Olen.

However, Olen didn’t pull his leading scorer. Instead, he drew up a play designed to get Tait-Jones another 3-point attempt.

Tait-Jones took a pass from guard Tyler McGhie and drained the shot before exchanging giant smiles with Olen as the Tritons headed back on defense.

Thanks in large part to Tait-Jones’ 25 points on 9-of-12 shooting, UCSD (16-4, 6-2 Big West) cruised to a 77-63 victory and season sweep of UCSB (12-7, 4-4 Big West). The Tritons are now one game behind first-place UC Irvine (17-3, 7-1 Big West) for first place in the conference.

“There’s a fine line,” Olen said. “ I don’t want to take away from his intensity or passion. It’s contagious and important for us … So we set up another one and it was, ‘Just run back and you can yell at our bench.’ I was mad at him, but it was: ‘I’m going to go right back to you.’”

With a team built around Tait-Jones, fellow senior guards McGhie and Hayden Gray and junior forward Nordin Kapic, UCSD has a deeply experienced team. Olen gives the veteran group plenty of freedom; all he asks in return is that they use sound judgment and generally make the right basketball play.

Tait-Jones, a native of Wellington, New Zealand, is averaging 19.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.3 steals per game. The wiry 6-foot-6, 200-pounder also leads the nation with 173 free throw attempts.

Labeled “unorthodox” by Olen, Tait-Jones’ game is built around slithery drives to basket. He’s adept at drawing contact with an assortment of fakes, jabs and the use of odd angles. Add in a nice mid-range jump shot, periodic post-ups against smaller guards and the occasional 3-pointer, and Tait-Jones can beat teams a number of ways.

As for the technical foul, Tait-Jones let out a sheepish grin when describing what happened.

“I gotta be better. That’s on me,” Tait-Jones said. “I’m just a fiery competitor, man. I love to hoop. But I have to be better for the team in that situation. You can’t give up free points. I gotta be more composed in that moment.”

The next challenge for the Tritons comes Saturday, when they host Cal State Fullerton at LionTree Arena. Fourth-place CSUN (13-6, 5-3 Big West) is coming off an 86-76 home win over Long Beach State Thursday night and trying to stay in the regular-season title mix.

Every win helps UCSD’s NCAA Tournament chances, whether it’s by improving the Tritons’ resume and metrics or locking up a top seed in the conference tournament.

The Big West’s top two seeds receive a double-bye and automatic berth in the conference tournament semifinals. The Nos. 3 and 4 seeds receive first-round byes; the next four teams face the daunting prospect of winning four games in four days to win the title.

The Tritons and UC Irvine will meet again Feb. 8. They also have a pair of looming matchups with second-place UC Davis (Feb. 15 at LionTree and March 8 at Davis) as well as a visit to Northridge on Feb. 27.

“We’re focused on our results,” Tait-Jones said. “Results around the league happen. We just have to be focused on what we can do to win games.”

Saturday’s games

Cal State Northridge at UC San Diego (16-4, 6-2 Big West), 7 p.m. Streaming: ESPN+

USD (4-17, 1-7 WCC) at San Francisco (12-0, 6-3 WCC). 7 p.m. Streaming: ESPN+

Hawaii-Hilo (13-6, 6-3 PacWest) at Point Loma Nazarene (17-4, 10-1 PacWest), 4 p.m. Streaming: pacwestnetwork.tv.

Originally Published: January 24, 2025 at 1:38 PM PST