Stephan Gilling was amazed at how well Green Bay shot the 3-pointer at the Pyramid last Saturday.
Thursday night it was his turn.
Gilling, who has struggled with his shot of late and didn’t start, knocked down a career-high seven 3-pointers — including five in the second half — and finished with a game-high 23 points to lead Long Beach State to a 75-74 win over UC Irvine on Senior night at the Walter Pyramid.
The junior guard made two free throws with 29.7 seconds left to seal the win for LBSU (14-12, 9-4 Big West Conference).
Gilling had seen more minutes with Donovan Morris out, but came in averaging just 10 points per game in his last six while shooting just 34 percent (17-of-50) from the field and a paltry 29.2 percent from 3-point range (12-of-41).
He didn’t struggle on this night and provided a big spark off the bench for head coach Dan Monson and he wasn’t sure he was ready to make a change.
“When he got demoted on Monday,” Monson said, “he’s been shooting the ball like that for four days. If he’s mad at me, if he’s mad at the world, whatever it is I dont want to mess with it right now.”
Gilling said he was benched due to his frustration over the Green Bay loss but came to terms with it and thrived.
“It felt good actually when I knew it wasn’t starting,” Gilling said about his shot. “I just took it as feeling more comfortable. I think I was too tense when I was starting. I just felt more relaxed.”
He also credited the improvement to a slight change in his mechanics, where he is straightening his arm more on the release.
Gilling teammates played well, too. The trio of talented ‘Niners freshmen were all in double-digits.
T.J. Robinson scored 14 points and pulled down eight rebounds, Casper Ware and Larry Anderson added 12 apiece.
Senior center Brian Freeman had six points and nine rebounds.
Long Beach led by 11, 73-62, with 2:43 to play but struggled to put the Anteaters away as they pulled to within two at 73-71 with 1:08 remaining via a four-point play from Patrick Rembert. Gilling’s free-throws would be the difference, however.
“They’re playing very well right now,” Monson said. “We are happy to get out of here with a win.”
LBSU trailed, 43-37, with 17:09 left but a 22-7 run put The Beach up nine with 9:06 to go led by Gilling’s heroics.
“We needed that boost,” Robinson said. “Steph came in and caught fire and that sparked us.”
The Beach dominated the glass, 32-19, pulling down as many offensive rebounds (16) as Irvine did on the defensive end.
“[We] rebounded hard,” Monson said. “Definitely one of our better rebounding games and that kind of got us through.”
Both teams shot the ball extremely well with UCI making 55.8 percent from the field (24-of-43) and just under that from 3-point range (10-of-18). LBSU made 50 percent of its shots (29-of-58) and 11-of-21 or 52.4 percent from long distance.
Eric Wise had 17 points to lead the way for UCI (10-18, 6-8 Big West). Michael Hunter had 16 while Rembert added 11 and Kevin Bland also had 11 points to go along with eight rebounds.
It was a showcase of the best the Big West has to offer for the future. Four of the five most likely picks for this year’s All-Freshman team — Anderson, Robinson, Ware and Wise — all started and played a ton of minutes and combined for 55 points.
Morris played 13 minutes off the bench but didn’t score, missing all three of his attempts.
“I was happy to get [13] minutes out of him. If he’s not sore tomorrow, I’ll be elated,” Monson said of Morris.
Irvine fell to 7-2 when leading at the half after holding a slim 36-35 edge at intermission.
The Anteaters were hot from long distance in the first 20 minutes, making seven 3-pointers.
Hunter had 14 points (4-of-6 on 3-pointers) for Irvine to lead all scorers at the break.
Ware had nine to pace The Beach while Robinson added eight.
Long Beach heads north Saturday afternoon for a game against co-Big West leader Cal State Northridge. Tip-off is at 3:05 p.m. in the Matadome and the game will air on FSN Prime Ticket.
For more men’s basketball coverage, visit Tucker Talks.