IRVINE — The 3-point shot has been one of the best weapons for the UC Irvine basketball team this season.

Unfortunately for the Anteaters, it mostly backfired on them Monday night.

UCI couldn’t make the long shots when it counted and UC Santa Barbara took advantage of a soft spot in the middle to secure a 73-65 win in a matchup of top Big West Conference teams at the Bren Events Center.

Dawson Baker scored 17 points and Dean Keeler finished with a career-high 13 points off the bench, but there was little else that went right for UCI (12-6 overall, 5-1 Big West), which is now in a three-way tie for second place with UCSB and Hawaii, half a game behind UC Riverside.

The Anteaters came in fifth in the nation in 3-point accuracy at 40.5%, but shot just 6 for 19 (31.6%) against the Gauchos (14-3, 5-1).

“Both teams were highly motivated and knew what was at stake,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “Give Santa Barbara credit, they were better than we were tonight.”

UCI was without 7-foot center Bent Leuchten for the third straight game because of a knee injury.

Leuchten was a big reason the Anteaters had outscored their opponents in the paint 630-436 coming into the game, but the other big men for the Anteaters were no match for UCSB forwards Andre Kelly and Miles Norris.

Kelly, a 6-foot-9 graduate student who played the past four seasons at Cal, finished with a season-high 22 points and 11 rebounds.

Norris, a 6-10 senior, contributed 15 points and 12 rebounds.

Keeler, a 6-11 senior who came in averaging 15.2 minutes, played a season-high 21:30 against the Gauchos.

“Dean’s not a guy who’s used to playing that many minutes, and he played his minutes exceptionally well,” Turner said. “Give him credit, he stepped up with a couple key guys out and he was obviously ready.”

UCSB was playing short-handed as well.

Josh Pierre-Louis, a senior guard who is the team’s third-leading scorer (10.1) and best defender, remained back at the hotel because of an illness.

The Gauchos led just 32-29 at halftime, despite shooting a sizzling 58.3% from the floor in the opening 20 minutes.

Kelly scored 14 points in the opening half.

“We kind of let (Kelly) play without a crowd around him, which is really an unusual thing for our team to do, especially against a guy like him that’s not much of a passer,” Turner said. “For him to be able to continually shoot shots from close range like that with his strong hand is a frustrating thing for me as a coach.”

Baker sank a fadeaway jumper to tie the score at 60-all with 4:39 left.

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DJ Davis made two free throws with 2:25 remaining to draw the Anteaters back within two points, and he made a 3-pointer with 1:09 left to cut the deficit to 68-65, but those were the final points for the Anteaters.

“Santa Barbara came into our house and shot 56 percent,” Turner said. “Their main guys are doing the things that they do best, and us being unable to keep them from doing those things.”

Akiva McBirney-Griffin, a 6-9 freshman for UCI, came in averaging 4.7 minutes. He started in place of Leuchten and contributed four points and two rebounds in 13:01.

Hayden Welling, a 6-8 freshman forward, played 5:29 after coming in averaging just under four minutes. He had no points and one rebound.

“We have great respect for the Irvine program, their coaching staff, their players,” UCSB coach Joe Pasternack said. “They are the gold standard and I thought our guys just really, really competed hard.”