ANAHEIM — At least the turkey and stuffing will taste better than the 23-point loss.
Larry Anderson was held to just five points as the Long Beach State men’s basketball team fell to No. 8 West Virginia, 85-62, in the 76 Classic’s opening game on Thursday.
The Mountaineers (3-0) led by as many as 28 points in the wire-to-wire victory at the Anaheim Convention Center.
LBSU (3-2) was never able to get into any kind of shooting rhythm and shot just 41.9 percent from the field in its first game against a ranked opponent this season. The 49ers also struggled from 3-point range, as they mustered up eight 3-pointers, five of which came in the second half, to shoot 38.1 percent for the game.
“We’re just disappointed that we didn’t play better,” head coach Dan Monson said. “You go into a game like that and you know you have a small margin for error. … I was hoping we would be more competitive than that.”
The Beach struggled to contain a balanced WVU offensive attack, which was led by Casey Mitchell’s career-high 18 points. Meanwhile, senior Da’Sean Butler, who contributed 13 points, was one of four Mountaineers to score in double-figures in the game.
Stephan Gilling and Greg Plater paced The Beach with 14 points apiece, while T.J. Robinson pitched in with 10 points. Anderson, who struggled from the outset, picked up a team-high eight turnovers and was held without a field goal in the contest.
“I haven’t had a game like this since I’ve been here,” Anderson said. “There’s always room for improvement.”
LBSU was taken out of its game early in the first half, as the Mountaineers came out firing to take the early 9-2 lead with the help of two of Casey’s four 3-pointers. From that point on, the 49ers struggled to hit shots consistently, while WVU finished the game shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc.
“It’s no secret that it makes the game a lot easier when shots are going in,” Monson said. “We didn’t do a good job defensively, especially early, of finding shooters. And then once they got into a flow, now it’s really hard to turn that flow off.”
The ‘Niners were able to edge out WVU in the first half rebounding battle, 17-16, but turned the ball over 15 times in the first 20 minutes of action. Sophomore Casper Ware picked up two fouls in the first few minutes of the game, which caused the point guard to play a season-low 20 minutes.
Monson used all 12 players that dressed in the game, but Arturas Lazdauskas was out with a hand injury that will sideline him for four weeks.
“Having Arturas out definitely hurts our depth,” Monson said about playing all 12 guys. “Any minutes we can do that in this tournament is gravy, but we’re here to try and compete and to win. Those guys are going to have to learn on the fly a little bit.”
Both teams we’re on the referees for most of the contest, as was the mostly pro-Mountaineer crowd.
With the loss, the 49ers will take on the loser of today’s match-up between No. 19 Clemson and Texas A&M at 2 p.m. on Friday.
“We’re really trying to attack this schedule as opportunities,” Monson said. “Today was an opportunity of a lifetime. … We didn’t do a good job with it, but there’s a new one tomorrow.”