Closing out games has been an Achilles’ heel for the for the Long Beach State men’s basketball team this season and Thursday night was no different.
Despite some late-game heroics by UC Santa Barbara, the 49ers (10-12, 4-3) defeated the Gauchos, 80-70, in an overtime thriller inside the Walter Pyramid.
Trailing by three with one second left in the game, UCSB’s Michael Bryson pulled up from beyond the arc and drew a foul on senior guard Nick Faust. That sent Bryson to the charity stripe for three free throws.
“I go into the gym a lot and get my reps up so I was pretty confident that I was going to be able to knock them down,” Bryson said. “I tried to stay within myself, block out the crowd and focus on the rim.”
Facing the front of the student section, the senior out of Sacramento made all three free throws without hesitation, sending the game into overtime.
There, LBSU regrouped and outscored the Gauchos 10-0 to seal the victory.
“Overtime was a disaster for us,” Bryson said. “We didn’t execute, didn’t take care of the ball and didn’t get stops on defense and we let them get to the charity stripe and get easy points to create separation.”
49er coach Dan Monson said he hopes that Thursday night’s victory can be a step in the right direction, considering that LBSU was 2-8 in games decided by seven or less coming into the game.
“We haven’t dug a game out like that all year, so it was good to see,” Monson said.
Faust had a game-and career-high 34 points and said he knew early on that his shot was on.
“After the first couple get going, you know,” Faust said. “I just really wanted to win really bad.”
It was another up-and-down game for LBSU who overcame an 11-point halftime deficit and took a one-point lead with nine minutes left.
The 49ers started off the game by completing nine of their first thirteen field goal attempts in the first 11 minutes, but only made two of their last 17 shot attempts to close out the first half.
“[With] all the stuff that went bad and the games we lost lately, it would have been easy for them to separate,” Monson said. “They didn’t do that. They stuck together.”
Monson said that the 49ers struggled in the latter part of the first half because they were individually forcing plays.
“Guys were trying to make plays instead of making plays for others,” Monson said.
LBSU bounced back in the second half by outscoring the Gauchos 23-16 in the first 10 minutes. After knotting the score at 56 with 9:08 left in the game.
The 49ers face a tough road test next when they visit Hawai’i on Saturday at 10:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.