When you watch a young team develop, you’re going to see them go through some growing pains—say, the 49ers’ recent home stretch, where they’ve lost three straight.  But, if you’ve got the right players, you’re also going to enjoy some growth spurts, like the one Long Beach State fans witnessed in the Pyramid on Saturday night, as The Beach came through in the clutch, winning 81-80 in double overtime.  The win keeps Long Beach in first place in the Big West, at 7-3.

Winning the game on rebounding and free-throw shooting, the team’s largest weaknesses to this point, showed the development of the team as a whole, but especially the development of its freshman class.  “A lot of people criticized our free throw shooting,” coach Dan Monson said after the game.  “Especially with our freshmen—but they came through with this one.”  T.J. Robinson, Larry Anderson, and Casper Ware combined for 18/22 from the charity stripe, 55 points, and 137 minutes of playing time.  The team’s efforts to improve its rebounding skills paid off, as they pulled in 39 boards to Pacific’s 26—Robinson led all players with ten, and even the diminutive Ware stuck his nose in and pulled down six, more than any Pacific player managed to grab. 

In a tight game—12 ties, 16 lead changes, and, oh yeah, two overtimes—it’s the fundamentals of the game that pull a team through, and the rebounding provided a huge boost, though perhaps not as big as the free throws.  In the first extra period, Pacific jumped out to an early three-point lead, but LBSU tied it on a free throw by Robinson and a tip-in by Williams. The 49ers pushed the lead to three but couldn’t hold it as the Tiger s scored with 13 seconds to play to send it into a second overtime.

In the second extra period, Anderson put the 49ers up early hitting a three to push the score to 77-74. The Tigers answered with a basket and a free throw to force the 11th tie of the game. They built the lead to three, but Ware drained his four free throws in the final 1:12 of the game to lead LBSU to the win.

“My dad always used to preach to me that it’s going to come down to the last two free throws,” said Ware after the game.  “And you’ve gotta hit them.  I was never nervous, because my dad prepared me.”

Coach Monson has certainly been drilling it as well, and he seemed very satisfied with his young players.  “With Donovan and Arturas out, all three were huge.  T.J. scored more [24 points to lead all scorers] but he’s the benefit of a lot of penetration by Casper—Casp did a great job as a freshman of running the team [nine assists attest to that].  And Larry does a lot of little things.”  Anderson finished with a career-high 20 points, including two dunks in the first half that got the crowd involved.

Monson emphasized that with D. Mo sidelined, the entire team has stepped up.  “You’ve gotta win a game like that by committee—we’re not just going to anoint somebody, say, ‘Oh, D. Mo’s gone, so Steph’s going to take the last shot.’  They got a good look at the end—we’ve had some bad breaks at the end of games, so we were due to have a good one.  We weren’t great today, but we got it done.”

“It’s a great energy boost,” said Robinson.  “We’re still number one, and we feel great.”

Along with growing up, of course, comes a willingness to leave the house—and the three freshmen seemed eager to get on the road.  “We gel away from home,” said Ware, “because we don’t have our fans to pump us up—we just have each other.”

“It’s good that we’re going on the road,” said Anderson.  “We haven’t lost on the road, and we don’t plan on losing—we’re excited.”

Their next road test will come at 5-5 Riverside, on Wednesday at 8pm.