The Long Beach State 49ers came into their game against the Fullerton Titans with less energy, less emotion and less desire than their opponent. They left with their fifth straight loss.

Fullerton forward Gerard Anderson led all scorers with a career-high 22 points as the Titans outplayed the 49ers in nearly every way on their way to an 85-75 victory. The win was Fullerton’s first of the conference season. Long Beach stands at 0-2 in Big West play after being selected as the preseason favorite to win the conference championship.

Long Beach never led.

The 6-foot-6 Anderson destroyed the Long Beach defense in all of its varieties. He penetrated and spun in the low post again and again for easy buckets when the 49ers played man-to-man, and drained a few uncharacteristic three-pointers when the 49ers shifted to a zone. In the second half, Anderson skied above the rim for three dunks; two of which were as impressive as you’ll ever see.

The rest of the Titans followed suit, abusing the Long Beach matchup defense down low and exploiting holes in the 2-3 zone for wide open jump shots. The Fullerton lead hovered around ten points for most of the game and was as high as 14 late in the second half.

“Today was just a total breakdown,” said Long Beach State head coach Dan Monson. “We were never in it.”

Titan guard Jacques Streeter made five three-pointers to score 20 points and two other Fullerton players scored in double figures. The Titans shot 23-26 from the free throw line and outrebounded Long Beach by 27-15 in the second half.

“They were just hungrier than us,” said Long Beach State sophomore guard Casper Ware. “We walked in there like they were just going to give us the game.”

Greg Plater led the 49ers with 18 points off the bench and Ware added 15 and three assists. Forward T.J. Robinson had an uncharacteristically quiet night with 9 points on just 3-9 shooting. Larry Anderson was not aggressive offensively and struggled to find a rhythm, scoring 15 points on 5-8 shooting but committing 6 turnovers. Senior guard Stephan Gilling continued his outside shooting troubles, going 2-10 from three-point range.

Long Beach and Fullerton shot a nearly identical percentage from the field, but Long Beach was outrebounded by 12, committed 16 turnovers to Fullerton’s 12, made three fewer 3-pointers and shot 66.7% from the free throw line to Fullerton’s 88.5%.

The 49ers have not won a game since their December 18 home victory over Utah State. They have since dropped road games at Loyola Marymount, Kentucky, Duke, UC Riverside and now Cal State Fullerton.

“We’re not good enough right now. We’re not as good as these teams,” said Monson, following the game. “When you’ve got to get better you’ve got to learn from your mistakes and we’re making a lot of them. I said that after the Riverside game, and we came out and played even worse.”

Long Beach State will finally return home this Saturday when they host UC Irvine, as a team that many thought would wreak havoc on the Big West Conference continues to search for their first win. After the game, some wondered whether the 49ers’ brutal nonconference schedule – with games against five Top 25 opponents – had caused them to take conference foes lightly.

“You could say that,” said Ware. “We didn’t prepare the way we should’ve, like we did against teams like Duke.”

They’ll try to right the ship at home this Saturday.

All photos by Andrew Veis.