From LBPOSTSports.com: Long Beach State came out on a mission in the second half, and when center Brian Freeman found a cutting Cornel Williams for a layup that gave them a 13-point lead, the 49ers looked well on their way to a 6-1 conference record with a win over Cal State Fullerton.
Then the Josh Akognon Show began.
Fullerton’s senior guard scored nine consecutive points in just two minutes and three seconds, setting the tone for a blazing second half in which Akognon scored 23 of his game-high 31 points on 8-12 shooting from the field.
Then, trailing by one with 18 seconds left, Akognon drove past 49er guard Casper Ware and pulled up quickly at the elbow to drain a fifteen-foot jumper that would give Fullerton the 61-60 victory before a packed house of more than 4,200 in the Walter Pyramid.
Video by J.J. Fiddler
“We get up 13 and make two or three mistakes in a row, and a player of Akognon’s stature is going to make you pay,” said Long Beach State head coach Dan Monson. “He just made one more play than we did today. He was outstanding.”
The 49ers threw a gaggle of defenders of all shapes and sizes at Akognon – from the lightning-quick Ware, to the more physical Stephan Gilling and Larry Anderson. After the game, Gilling said that he and Anderson traded tips on how to guard Akognon. They agreed not to play help defense if their teammates needed it, focusing instead solely on their high-profile assignment.
“It worked in the first half, but in the second half he came out lighting it up,” Gilling said. He and Anderson hassled Akognon into 3-11 shooting in the first half, and Fullerton shot just 10-34 (29.4%) as a team thanks to intense perimeter defense from the 49ers. Long Beach took a 32-24 lead into the break. Even when Fullerton made their big run in the second half, the 49ers held their advantage until an Akognon jumper gave the Titans a two-point lead with 31 seconds remaining.
On the next play, Stephan Gilling inbounded ball under his own basket to Donovan Morris. As he stepped back inbounds, forward T.J. Robinson set a screen on Gilling’s defender and he broke for the corner. Morris found him wide open and Gilling drained the three-pointer to give Long Beach a one-point lead with just 19 seconds to go.
“I’ve been working on that shot for a while now,” said Gilling, who led the 49ers with 15 points. “It felt kind of natural.”
But just 16 seconds later, Akognon nailed the winning bucket over Ware to negate Gilling’s clutch jumper and claim the victory for Fullerton.
Long Beach’s defense was superb, forcing Akognon to catch the ball about thirty feet from the basket – as Ware had been denying him intensely throughout the game. Once he had the ball, though, Akognon dribbled left and threw on the afterburners, stopping on a dime at the free-throw elbow to pull up and release the jumper over Ware’s fingertips. Long Beach’s freshman point guard was visibly upset with himself as the buzzer sounded.
“In the locker room [Ware’s] head was down. I told him to keep his head up,” Gilling said. “’Cas did a good job on him, we thought. I guess Akognon had a hot hand. Any space that he has, he’s shooting.”
Long Beach coach Dan Monson tried everything to stop the Big West’s leading scorer.
“We tried switching it, we tried trapping it, we tried just showing and getting back, and then we tried just fighting through it,” Monson said. “We just didn’t have an answer.”
One came to him after the buzzer sounded, though.
“We were going to double him if he came off the on-ball [screen] at the end,” he said, explaining that the plan was to double Akognon if the Titans set a screen for him as they had been doing all game long. The 49ers played great individual perimeter defense on Thursday night, but Monson wondered if he should have sent more defenders to help.
“In hindsight afterwards, I wish I would’ve come after him.”
Click here to read the rest of the story by Ryan ZumMallen.