The Long Beach State men’s basketball team travels to Ogden, Utah for a game tonight with the Weber State Wildcats (2-4).
The game is a rematch of LBSU’s dramatic, come-from-behind Homecoming win on Nov. 22 at the Walter Pyramid.
After trailing by as many as 23 points in the second half, the ‘Niners stormed back and won the game, 73-69, in overtime.
LBSU head coach Dan Monson has his team prepared for the rematch and talked about playing a team twice.
“It’s harder to beat a team twice if you blow them out the first time,” Monson said. “Then your players don’t respect them. But Weber State definitely got our guys attention. We know they are very good and definitely got our respect for how they played in here.”
Senior guard Donovan Morris expects the game to be very competitive again.
“I feel both teams will probably play much better and be better prepared, based on the fact that we’ve played one another in the past few weeks,” Morris said. “So this game should be a lot better through out its entirety.”
Weber State is paced by guard Kellen McCoy, who leads the team with 12.5 points per game. Steve Panos is scoring 11.7 PPG and leads the team in rebounding, pulling down 6.5 per game.
LBSU (4-3) has the second best record in the Big West Conference behind UC RIverside (5-2).
The 49ers are led by Morris, who earned back-to-back Big West Player of the Week selections. Morris is scoring 20 PPG for Long Beach — good for second in the conference.
Stephan Gilling is scoring 10.4 PPG and leads the team with 22 3-pointers. Casper Ware is just behind Gilling at 10.3 PPG and leads the team in assists (26) and steals (13).
LBSU is just 1-3 on the road this season, having lost to San Francisco last Saturday, 78-74, in double OT. They won at Idaho State after dropping the first two games of the season at BYU and Wisconsin.
It was those two games, on the road in hostile buildings, against two of the best programs in the country that has LBSU feeling prepared for its trip to Syracuse.
“You play in a tough environment,” Monson said, “so that when you go to the next one, they’ve experienced it before. They are not overwhelmed and can get through those type of situations. So hopefully those [first two games] can pay dividends for us.”
The 13th-ranked Orange are 8-0 including a 7-0 mark at their home arena, the Carrier Dome. It’s the largest on-campus arena in the country, seating more than 33,000 for basketball and nearly 50,000 for football.
LBSU is slated to meet Syracuse at 9 a.m. Pacific time and the game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
Morris and the 49ers haven’t been looking ahead to the Orange just yet, but they know what playing a team of Syracuse’s caliber means.
“To be honest,” Morris said, “we haven’t really talked too much about [Syracuse] on the fact that we just lost a game to USF, which we should’ve played a lot harder as a unit. But all that I can say about the Syracuse game is that it is a great opportunity for our program.”
The Orange are led by NBA lottery-pick-to-be Jonny Flynn. The sophomore guard is scoring 19.5 PPG after averaging 15.7 PPG in his freshman season. His backcourt mate, Eric Devendorf, is averaging 14.1 PPG.
Down low, Syracuse is anchored by two big-time forwards. Paul Harris is averaging 14.8 PPG and 8.9 rebounds per game while Arinze Onuaku scores 12.9 PPG and gets 7.8 RPG.
After the Syracuse game, LBSU takes a week off for finals then hosts two games right before Christmas against Montana State (Dec. 20) and Temple (Dec. 22).
Both dates will be doubleheaders for the men’s and women’s squads. On Dec. 20, the men’s game is at 3 p.m while the women tip-off with Brigham Young at 5:30 p.m.
Times for Dec. 22 have been moved up. The women play New Mexico State at 3:30 p.m. while the men’s game now starts at 6 p.m.