The Long Beach State men’s basketball team ended a long weekend in the best way it could: with a win over Cal State Fullerton.
The 49ers took down their rivals Saturday, winning 75-56 in front of 3,762 fans on blackout night.
Playing before an amped up student section dressed in blackout night tuxedo T-shirts, the 49ers (9-12, 5-2 Big West Conference) took a commanding lead early and never gave it up. Head coach Dan Monson said the crowd was a definite factor in the team’s fourth straight win, which launched them into a tie for first in the Big West standings.
“The crowd definitely gave us a boost,” he said.
Despite dealing with flight delays in Hawaii and not getting back to Long Beach until less than 24 hours before tip-off, the 49ers came out with a bounce in their step and took a 12-3 lead over the first six minutes. As the half went on, the Titans looked more and more like a one-man team, as guard Alex Harris scored 12 of CSUF’s first 14 points.
Armed with a comfortable lead, LBSU was able to get a little fancy on offense and make a play worthy of the Sportscenter top 10.
Coming off of a missed layup by Harris, 49ers guard Mike Caffey dribbled down the right side of the court on a fastbreak. At about the 3-point line, he threw up a lob at the left side of the backboard, where Dan Jennings caught it and threw it down for a textbook alley-oop.
The momentum created by the play deteriorated at the end of the half, though, as the Titan’s other star guard, Michael Williams, became more active as a scorer. He made a pair of 3-pointers over the final 1:13 to bring the Titans within striking distance at 38-26 at halftime.
Even with a 12-point lead, Monson said he didn’t feel great about the first half and thought the 49ers weren’t playing good enough defense on Harris and Williams.
“You’re not going to stop two players that good, but you can’t let them get [21 of the Titans’ 26 points] in the first half,” he said.
The second half went much better for the 49ers in that respect, as they held Harris to just three points. Williams got 10, but LBSU still held a comfortable lead despite seeing the quality of play of both teams deteriorate for a period in the second half.
“That’s the next step for us, is to be able to put someone away,” Monson said. “We haven’t had a lot of opportunities to do that this year.”
Caffey had 23 points to lead the 49ers, and Tyler Lamb added 18. LBSU shot 55.1 percent for the game, which proved to be a significant advantage over a CSUF team that struggled with shooting all night. The Titans shot 22.9 percent in the first half and at one point had as many airballs as assists.
It was a successful weekend overall for the ‘Niners, who also managed to steal a win in a high-scoring game at Hawaii on Thursday. Despite having a game plan that revolved around defense, LBSU had to rely on career-high point totals from Caffey (who scored 29) and A.J. Spencer (24) to get a 92-83 win.
“In that game, our plan was to slow them down and everything, but it became a high-scoring game,” Lamb said. “We had guys like A.J. Spencer step up, and our bench really played well. When we’re feeling it like that, it’s going to be hard for teams to stop us.”