Joe Pasternack didn’t mark his 45th birthday with a big party on Saturday, preferring just a quiet family dinner.
What he really wanted was his UC Santa Barbara basketball team to age a little more.
“I spent most of the day working the phones, trying to recruit some transfers,” the Gaucho coach said. “In college basketball now, you’ve got to get old … and stay old.”
One of Pasternack’s biggest birthday wishes was granted a week earlier with the happy return of star forward Miles Norris. The 6-foot-10 senior announced on Twitter that he would make use of the NCAA’s COVID-19 waiver and come back to UCSB for a fifth season.
“He’s a big one to get back,” Pasternack said. “It’s like a gift for him, getting another year to get ready for pro basketball.
“There’s no question he has all the measurable skills to play in the NBA … The length, the athleticism, the skills. He just has to get stronger and heavier and become more consistent.”
Two more presents could brighten Pasternack’s own future. A pair of 6-foot-10 sophomores from power conference schools are now visiting UCSB — one on Easter Sunday and the other on Monday — after entering the NCAA transfer portal.
The Gauchos’ fifth-year coach circled Wednesday’s start of the NCAA spring signing period — not his Saturday birth date — as the biggest day on this week’s calendar.
“We’ve got to get one or two more players,” Pasternack said. “We obviously have two big guys in Amadou (Sow) and Robinson (Idehen) that we need to replace. They’ve been such a big part of our program for the last three, four years.
“Replacing Amadou, a four-time all-conference player, is maybe our toughest assignment.”
The pleasantly surprising return of Norris — who took part in last month’s Senior Night ceremonies with Sow, Idehen, Jay Nagle and Sékou Touré — has eased the pressure of that task. He received All-Big West Conference honorable mention this season for the second-straight year after averaging 10.3 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.
“He’s an excellent three-point shooter,” Pasternack pointed out. “But if he can add rebounding and driving the ball and scoring in the paint to his repertoire — things that he’s working really, really hard at this spring — I think the sky is the limit for him.”
The only other returning post player on scholarship is 6-10 and 225-pound Jakov Kukic, a sophomore from Croatia. He’s played only spot minutes behind Sow and Idehen the last two seasons, but Pasternack is auditioning him this spring for a prime-time role.
“Jakov has done a really good job of training and working out, and he’s getting better every single day,” he said.
But as much as Pasternack treasures the experience of a veteran, he is excited about the immediate prospects of high school recruit Koat Keat Tong, a 6-10 post player from the South Sudan.
The Orange County Register named him last week as its County Player of the Year after he averaged 17 points, 12 rebounds and four assists per game for Irvine’s Crean Lutheran High School, the No. 8 team in the final CalHi Sports state poll.
“He’s a legit 6-foot-10, and he’s skilled as far as ball-handling goes,” Pasternack said. “He’s a great passer. He’s a great athlete — he can really rebound the ball.
“He’s got to get stronger and heavier, but he has an unbelievable motor. He’s a team guy, and I think our team and our fans are going to absolutely love him.”
The transfer portal was Pasternack’s go-to move through most of his first four seasons, providing him with such all-leaguers as Leland King, Ar’mond Davis, JaQuori McLaughlin, Devearl Ramsey and Norris. But rookie Ajay Mitchell, a point guard he recruited out of Belgium, made a big first impression this season.
Mitchell earned second-team all-league honors as well as the Big West Freshman of the Year Award after averaging 11.6 points and 3.7 assists per game.
“We were really fortunate to get it right on Ajay,” Pasternack said. “What a spectacular talent and player he is. But I think you’ve got to have a mixture of it all to be successful.”
His backcourt figures to be deep and experienced next year with the return of Mitchell and three others — Ajare Sanni, Josh Pierre-Louis and Calvin Wishart — all of whom will be entering their senior years. Cincinnati transfer Zach Harvey, UCSB’s biggest get from last year’s portal, will be a redshirt junior.
“We didn’t have these guys last spring,” Pasternack pointed out. “Calvin was coming off his surgery. Ajare was coming off an ankle injury and Josh had gotten hurt in the NCAA Tournament.
“Zach wasn’t here yet, either, and he didn’t get to play this year because he needed knee and ankle surgery. But he’s shooting now and doing skill work. Ajare and Josh and Calvin are all in it, too, as are Cole Anderson and Ajay Mitchell.
“It’s a highly competitive environment here this spring.”
The missed workouts last spring and summer led to an absence of wins through the first two months of last season. The Gauchos had a losing record of 8-9 before catching their stride. They won nine of their last 11 games to finish with a 17-11 record.
Five games — four which would have been played at the Thunderdome — were also canceled because of COVID-19 protocol, ruining UCSB’s chance at a fifth-straight 20-win season.
“The biggest reminder for me was that continuity is everything in college basketball,” Pasternack said. “Early this year, we had no continuity because JaQuori and Devearl, both three-year starters, were gone.
“I think we all assumed that everything would just continue from the previous year. Well, when you take away the heart of your team — take the ball out of their hands — it’s going to be different.
“Having that continuity with all those guys on the perimeter coming back — guys who’ve been in the wars, who know our system, and who’ve had a spring and a summer — is really going to help.”
Their offseason will include working with local youth — boys and girls in grades two through eight — in their annual summer basketball camps of June 13-17 and Aug. 1-5. Connecting with the community has been Pasternack’s main mission since coming to UCSB just before his 40th birthday in 2017.
“I feel good about where we’re at right now, and it’s all about the relationships we’re building,” he said. “Right from that first press conference, we talked about how we wanted to get the community involved.
“It’s also about building those relationships with our players. Seeing what Leland King and Marcus Jackson are now doing after basketball — those two (transfers) on our first team who are now both working for wealth management firms — is really the greatest satisfaction for a coach.
“We always say that coming here isn’t just a four-year or two-year decision, it’s a 50-year decision.”
And even at the young coaching age of 45, the future remains now.
“This is a big weekend,” Pasternack said of the recruiting visits. “If we can get just one more piece, we can be as good as we’ve been.”
— Noozhawk sports columnist Mark Patton is a longtime local sports writer. Contact him at sports@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.