Frustration. Helplessness. Disappointment. The fans of Long Beach State left the Anaheim Convention Center last night with a range of emotions after the 65-60 loss that ended the 49ers’ season at the hand of the Pacific Tigers. It hurt like the world had crashed down.
But it was nothing compared to what the players felt.
Casper Ware was obviously devastated on the sidelines. Donovan Morris was speechless in the postgame press conference. Head coach Dan Monson blamed himself.
“My job is to do the best I can with what I have, and I don’t know if I did that,” Monson said of the season that Long Beach ended at 15-15 overall, and with a second place finish in the Big West Conference.
“At least we did it fighting and scratching and clawing.”
Morris took little solace in that knowledge, however, unable to answer when asked how he would remember this season – probably because he never thought he’d have to answer that question so soon. He and the 49ers were expecting nothing but victory.
But Long Beach State was hampered by two issues during the loss: an inability to guard Pacific’s outside shooters, and a reluctance to move away from their own jump shots. Tiger guard Chad Troyer scored a game-high 22 points on 6-9 three-point shooting, while Pacific shot 11-20 from three as a team. Long Beach, on the other hand, enjoyed much more success inside the paint but continued to shoot from long range, connecting on just four of 20 attempts.
Freshman forward T.J. Robinson led the way with 21 points and six rebounds, while Morris ended his career as a 49er with 13 points on 5-12 shooting.
Long Beach State continued to launch three-pointers against Pacific’s zone defense despite being ice-cold from the perimeter. The 49ers were 4-20 from three-point range but 16-29 from inside the arc. The Tigers’ stifling 3-2 zone defense, with 6’6″ Joe Ford on the point position, halted any Long Beach penetration. The 49ers did not make a field goal for one 10:52 stretch in the second half.
Meanwhile, Troyer continued to bomb away. Long Beach’s insistence on applying full-court pressure and zone defenses led to assignment confusion and open seams for Pacific. Troyer exploited those weaknesses whenever he had the chance.
“Most of my shots wrren’t even coming from our offense,” he said. “We just did a great job of moving the ball and penetrating the gaps.”
The 49ers hung tough during the drought, and rallied to slice through Pacific’s lead. Several full-court press steals led to easy lay-ins, until the Beach found themselves down three with 0:07.5 seconds to play. Ware found Morris at the top of the key for a three-point shot that would have tied the game, but was just wide and Pacific sealed the victory with the rebound.
The 49ers end the season finishing second in the Big West after many expected them to finish fifth or worse due to an abysmal 6-25 record last season along with heavy reliance on four freshmen players. But Long Beach started out the conference schedule on a 5-0 roll to take an early lead in the standings. Since then, they alternated between wins and losses and conceded the top spot to Cal State Northridge. Pacific brought a five-game winning streak into last night’s game and will face Northridge tonight for the title.
“I will say that I’m proud of my guys, but this is a profession about winning,” Monson said. “We’ve got work to do to get this to where we need to go.”