June 21, 2005

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Courtney Young, a senior guard on the UC Santa Barbara women's basketball team, has left the program and withdrawn from school for personal reasons, head coach Mark French announced Tuesday.

Young transferred to UCSB from Ventura Junior College prior to the 2004-05 campaign, but missed the entire season due to complications from surgery to align her left patella tendon in April of 2004.

"Courtney made the decision that she has lost her passion for the game. Her situation at UCSB has been difficult with her knee injury, and also the expectations of having been a great local player," French stated. "Courtney feels that basketball defined who she was as a person for some time, and she wants to move in a different direction. Our Gaucho family wishes her the best in whatever path she chooses."

As a sophomore at Ventura College in 2003-04, Young averaged 20.2 points en route to being named one of only 10 Junior College All-Americans by the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association. The Westchester, Calif., native earned the first of her two co-State Player of the Year awards in 2002-03, after spending the previous season away from basketball. A 2001 graduate of Ventura's Buena High School, Young was the nation's 55th-ranked high school senior that year and earned All-CIF recognition all four years as a prepster.

In 2005-06 UCSB will feature seven returning letterwinners, three freshmen and regain the services of two players who missed all or most of last season due to injury including redshirt sophomore center Jenna Green, a 2003-04 Big West All-Freshman Team selection. Meanwhile sophomore guard Jessica Wilson earned all-rookie accolades in 2004-05 as the Gauchos posted a 21-9 overall record and advanced to the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Santa Barbara has reached the 20-win plateau in each of the past 10 seasons, while its decade-long dominance of the Big West ranks as the longest current run of outright conference titles by any team in the nation.