No Place Like Home

by John Zant '68

Photos by Jeff Liang

There may not have been a better tribute to Renee Jimenez’s first year as head coach of the UCSB women’s basketball team than the Big West Conference’s award for the “Best Hustle Player.” It went to Skylar Burke, a 5-foot-8- inch Gaucho junior who fought fearlessly for possession of the basketball whether she had to outmuscle taller players for rebounds or dive headlong to secure loose balls on the hardwood.

Leading the league in floor burns was the hallmark of former coach Mark French’s teams when he began turning around the program in 1987. The players’ all-out hustle captivated fans before the Gauchos started piling up victories and claiming 12 Big West championships from 1992 to 2008.

Of the coaches who have succeeded French since he retired with 438 wins in 21 seasons, Jimenez is by far the most connected to UCSB’s heritage. She grew up in Ventura and attended basketball camps at the Thunderdome. She was a sharpshooting guard at Ventura High, playing against future UCSB standouts Nicole Greathouse and Lisa Willett. As a junior in 1999, she helped Ventura win the Santa Barbara Tournament of Champions.

A quarter century later, Jimenez has established a residence in the Thunderdome. Athletics Director Kelly Barsky hired her to take the Gaucho women’s reins following the retirement of veteran coach Bonnie Henrickson. Jimenez’s journey included a college playing career at San Francisco State and 15 years as a head coach at the Division II level. She led Cal State San Marcos to the 2024 NCAA D-II Final Four.

“This is near and dear, my dream job,” Jimenez says of leading the Division I Gauchos. “This is the one job going through my career that I’ve always had my eyes on — one, because it’s home, and two, because I know how much pride is here, how much the community loves UCSB women’s basketball.

“The biggest thing, talking to former fans, they want to see a new energy, a new excitement, a different pace of play,” she says. “We want to put a product on the floor that people want to come to watch. We should be filling this place like they did in 1999, 2000. This is a job I would not have taken if I didn’t think that was possible. I definitely think, (with) 20-win seasons, we’re going to have this place rocking.”

The 2024-25 season marked some progress toward that goal, as the Gauchos finished with a record of 18 wins and 13 losses. They went 12-8 in the Big West, tied for their best conference record in the past 10 years. Among the teams they defeated were Hawai’i, the regular-season champion, and UC San Diego, winner of the Big West Tournament.

“My biggest takeaway is how winnable the Big West is,” Jimenez said after the season. “We’re not far off. Our goal is to get a bid to the NCAA.”

The coach’s inaugural season ended in a 56-54 loss to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at the conference tournament. Senior guard Alyssa Marin, named to the All-Big West Second Team, scored 23 points in her final game. She scored 1,234 points in her career, ranking No. 21 in Gaucho history.

Marin, who hails from Camarillo, got a boost in motivation from Jimenez’s arrival.

“The reason I came here was to be close to home,” Marin said after her last game at the Thunderdome, with six family members — her parents, two brothers and two grandparents — in attendance. “( Jimenez) was everything my senior year. She’s from Ventura, and she felt like home to me.”

UCSB claimed the nation’s best free-throw shooting percentage (80.8%) among NCAA Division I women’s teams, led by Marin’s 85.3%.

The Gauchos team graduated five seniors. Returning players include Burke; sophomore Zoe Borter, an All-Big West honorable mention; and All-Freshman selection Olivia Bradley.

“Kids like Skylar and Zoe, that’s what we’re about — a gritty, tough team,” Jimenez says. To find more players like them, Jimenez and her staff were busy meeting recruits in the spring. “We’re knocking on doors, introducing ourselves,” she says.

Unlike the Mark French era, when it was no surprise to see UCSB defeat USC or UCLA in women’s hoops, the new landscape of college athletics — in which it’s allowable to pay athletes beyond their scholarships — will be dominated by schools that are enriched by football TV contracts. “That’s coming,” Jimenez says, “whether we like it or not.”

What the UCSB coach will try to do is convince players that there’s no place like her home.