At the postgame press conference following Long Beach State’s 67-60 loss to UC Irvine in the semifinals of the Big West tournament, senior guard James Ennis sat with his head resting on his hand, his eyes pointed straight down at the table in front of him.
Ennis stayed like that for three full minutes. He didn’t do more than glance up or speak more than a word until the very end of the press conference.
“I’m just down on myself because I let my teammates down,” he said eventually. “I’m a senior. I’m supposed to help my teammates a lot, and I didn’t do my job, so that’s why I’m down on myself. Now we just have to go to the [National Invitational Tournament] and respresent Long Beach.”
It’s understandable why Ennis feels that way, but that doesn’t mean that he should. Yes, the senior guard got into foul trouble early on and had to sit out key minutes in the second half. Because of that, he fell 5.7 points short of his season average and almost four rebounds short of his season average.
But he still scored in double digits for the 37th straight game and went 3-for-6 behind the 3-point line. Monson was quick to back him up too, as he immediately said that any blame being placed on Ennis was “ridiculous.”
“We’re here because of him,” Monson said. “We won the league because of him. He’s the most valuable player in our league … I’m sitting here saying the same thing; there’s things I could have done, but you win as a team and you lose as a team, and this was his team. He wanted it so bad that he got into foul trouble … if the only thing he did wrong was want it too bad, we’ll live with that.”
One particular quote from Monson’s monologue stands out: “you win as a team, and you lose as a team.” It’s a cliché line that every sports reporter has heard in his or her lifetime, but like most clichés, it’s true. In this case, the 49ers lost as a team.
No one player dragged the ‘Niners down on Saturday night. In fact, most players had pretty good games. Keala King had 15 points, Tony Freeland had 15 and Mike Caffey had 14 to add to Ennis’ 11.
It was individual possessions or brief scoreless slumps that kept LBSU from the tournament finals. For example, midway through the second half, King dribbled the ball down the court, dribbled it around the arc, dribbled it toward the basket and got called for an offensive foul.
One possession, no passes, one foul and no points.
What really killed the 49ers’ title hopes was a five-minute span during the second half when nothing seemed to fall for The Beach. The 49ers came up empty on six shots during that time, and the Anteaters scored twice to narrow their deficit from 43-36 to 43-41. LBSU managed to hold onto the lead a little while longer, but its chance to blow things open and seal a trip to the finals had passed.
From an overall standpoint, the 49ers lost because they didn’t have the team chemistry to make it through the tournament undefeated.
“It’s who we are as a team unfortunately,” Monson said. “We never got consistent enough to win three games in a row.”
The 49ers will play at least once more in the NIT, but expectations aren’t high for this team to make any kind of run. The NIT is college basketball’s consolation prize, and the 49ers weren’t interested in consolation prizes this year. As a team, they just couldn’t pull things together enough to earn anything better.