49ers’
poor defense leads to road loss
By Karl Peterson
On-line Forty-Niner
The
Long Beach State men’s basketball team finally
cured the turnover plague, but poor defense
allowed three Southern Utah University players
to score in double figures in a 79-67 loss
in Cedar City, Utah.
 The
Beach’s defense gave up 19 points from Southern
Utah’s Jordan Mulford, who came off the
bench. Mulford had previously been averaging
only three points before setting his career
high in scoring Wednesday on 5-of-11 shooting.
Lemi Williams scored a season-high 18 for
the 49ers and appeared to be slowly recovering
from injuries.
The hot-handed shooting guard Tony Darden
was the focus of the Southern Utah defense
as he was only able to score 14 points,
seven below his season average.
The 49ers (1-3) never led in the ballgame
and were buried by insufficient defense
and poor shooting in the first half, connecting
on only 8-of-22 tries while falling behind,
41-31, in the opening 20 minutes.
Southern Utah point guard Jay Collins was
consistently finding the open man for the
Thunderbirds as he compiled 12 assists to
go along with eight points.
Al Williams and Kevin Henry had 17 and 16
points respectively for the Thunderbirds
(2-2), whose 71 points was the most allowed
by The Beach this season.
Antoine Jackson, a 6-foot-8 junior, had
a solid effort off the bench for the 49ers,
scoring eight points and grabbing four rebounds
while shooting a perfect 4-for-4 from the
field.
The 49ers team might have been looking ahead
to its road match-up with college basketball
powerhouse UCLA Sunday afternoon. The results
from that game will be in Tuesday’s edition
of the On-line Forty-Niner.
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