Photos by Andrew Veis

When you think about it, this was really the only way that the season could have ended.

After thirty-three games of tantalizing potential and frustrating miscues, milestone victories and ultimately false promise, lofty expectations and trips back to reality, it only made sense that the Long Beach State 49ers end their season with a furious rally to win two games in the Big West Tournament and flirt with a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament before digging themselves in an early hole and falling short to regular season conference champion UC Santa Barbara.

The Gauchos frustrated Long Beach State with a very active pressure matchup zone defense – the 49ers shot just 32.3% from the field in the second half – and converted free throws down the stretch to seal the 69-64 victory and earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2002.

Tournament MVP Orlando Johnson led all scorers with 20 points and shot 11-12 from the free-throw line. Fellow All-Tournament Team member James Nunnally scored 19 points and senior forward James Powell made four free throws in the final 27 seconds to give UC Santa Barbara the win.

The 49ers trailed by as much as 11 points in the first half, but rallied behind consecutive three-pointers from junior guard Greg Plater to close the halftime gap to 35-30. In the second half, sophomore point guard Casper Ware took control of the game with three consecutive steals and converted layups in transition. That sequence tied the game at 47-47 with 9:29 to play, and Long Beach State held a 53-52 lead when Plater again nailed consecutive threes at the 5:09 mark.

But Johnson scored the Gauchos’ next eight points and Long Beach tightened up offensively. The 49ers had a chance to tie the game when forward T.J. Robinson headed to the free-throw line with just 28 seconds to play, but he made just one of two and Long Beach State fouled Powell on the inbounds pass. Powell made two free throws to give UC Santa Barbara a three-point lead, and Long Beach senior Stephan Gilling was called for a charging foul on the 49ers’ next possession.

Ware led Long Beach with 19 points and five steals, while Robinson added 15 and eight rebounds followed by 14 from Plater and 11 points, five rebounds and three assists from guard Larry Anderson.

Ware, Robinson and Anderson were all named to the six-player All Tournament Team. Johnson and Nunnally from UC Santa Barbara as well as Joe Harden from UC Davis rounded out the selections.

All the post-game chatter centered around questionable calls by referees near the end of the game. Head coach Dan Monson suggested that the referees may have whistled a foul because they assumed that Long Beach would try to foul rather than steal the ball. Monson argued passionately for a jump ball call but Powell converted four straight free throws to seal the 49ers’ fate.

Despite his frustrations with the officiating, Monson also acknowledged that Long Beach State’s miscues earlier in the game put them in the position that ultimately cost them the game and a Conference Championship. The third-year coach said that he considers the season a disappointment.

“This program needs to get to where we measure ourselves by winning championships and not by competing for them,” Monson said. “Athletics is about winning, and anything short of that is disappointing. I don’t have any regrets as far as, they fought to the end to try to fix it and that’s all you can ask. As a coach, you try different things and we tried a lot of things. As a player, you can keep fighting and trying or give in; these guys kept fighting and trying. But just to say that we had a moral victory because we came within five points of the NCAA Tournament – no. I didn’t come to Long Beach State to finish second.”

For the third consecutive game in as many nights, the 49ers played some of their most sound basketball of the season when it mattered most. They played to their strengths and with maximum energy – which is more than can be said for the majority of the season. For a team that was picked overwhelmingly to win the Big West Conference and possibly make some noise on the national scene, soundly defeated a very good Utah State team and played wire-to-wire with Clemson and Kentucky, struggled to find an identity and a sense of comfort, the game on Saturday night was lost because of jittery mistakes with the ball and rushed shot selection.

Because that’s just what this team does, and it will go down as the mantra of the 2009-10 season – a never ending see-saw of give and take. For every moment of brilliance there was a mental lapse. They were explosive and emotional; they were talented and unpolished; they fought and scratched and clawed and they were overaggressive; they were excellent shooters and over-reliant on perimeter jumpers. Nearly every positive aspect that this team possessed came back to hurt them in some shape or form. They were expected to excel before learning how to reach their potential as a basketball team.