Last year, the meager scattering of fans in the Pyramid would have stood in ovation for the Long Beach State women’s basketball team’s furious late-game rally, as they scrapped and dug an 11-point deficit to just three points shortly before time expired. This year, the team’s new head coach and its old leader were left shaking their heads after a 75-70 defeat at the hands of Loyola Marymount, which gives the team its first loss of the year.
Truly, the rally was impressive, as players defended relentlessly in the backcourt, forced jump balls and grabbed steals, hit all their shots (including free throws), and played energetic, smart team ball. “We ended the way we would hope to start the game,” said coach Jody Wynn, who collected her first career loss. Karina Figueroa, a fifth-year leader on the team who definitely appears fully recovered from foot surgery, echoed her new coach’s statement. “We fought hard at the end, but we should have done that from the beginning.”
The lackadaisical effort described by both was truly a sloppy affair, as the Niners spotted a physically superior Lions team a 14-point lead in the first seven minutes, failing to show any real positive signs on either end of the court. It looked a little too familiar to another Niners player. “We reverted back to last year,” said Lauren Sims. “We were all on a separate page.”
In transition and in a set half-court defense, the team did a very poor job of closing to the perimeter, allowing a hot shooting Lions team to run up the score quickly from beyond the arc—after the first half, 18 of their 38 points were off three-pointers. But it went beyond that, as players fumbled passes, didn’t protect the ball while dribbling, and in once instance, literally tripped over each other.
“When you spot a Division 1 team a 13-point lead, it’s difficult to come back,” said Wynn. “The defensive intensity was nowhere near what it needed to be.”
The second half was certainly an improvement—better defensive effort forced eight turnovers and brought LMU’s shooting percentage down from 55% to 41%–but no amount of scrappy play could overcome the initial lapse, and even with the furious comeback attempt, with the team displaying lay-it-on-the-line intensity that seemed to totally fluster the Lions, they couldn’t claw their way back into the game.
Figueroa led the team with 21 points, five assists and five steals (she was also presented with a ceremonial ball before the game for joining the 49ers’ 1,000 point club on Friday); Sims was behind her with 14 points, including 2-3 behind the arc.
If the first half reminded fans of last year, the second half was more reminiscent of two years ago—only on the men’s side of the program. In Dan Monson’s first year at Long Beach, his team went 6-25, but wore themselves out with exhausting (if inconsistent) efforts in the losses. As Wynn coaches an experienced roster that’s not necessarily stacked with the kind of players she hopes to recruit, her hell-on-wheels run-the-court style may lead to similar results. In other words: the silver lining? The effort is vastly improved over last year. The cold, hard truth? The record may not be, unless the team can play the way they did in the last five minutes on a consistent basis.