49er exhibit looks good
By Andres Cardenas
Daily Forty-Niner
The players on the Long Beach State men's
basketball team learned there is still fine-tuning to be made after its
first exhibition win over Team Fokus, 111-93.
The 49ers used an early run to overcome
second half problems of foul trouble and defensive lapses to defeat Team
Fokus in front of 525 spectators at The Pyramid.
Team Fokus is one of many teams that play
in exhibitions this time of year against various colleges.
The 49ers were called for 31 personal fouls
during the game. After the game 49er Head Coach Wayne Morgan addressed
this problem.
"We are not going to win if we have James
Williams, Ron Johnson and Grant Stone on the bench," Morgan said, pointing
to the players that fouled out of the game.
Although Morgan said he was displeased
with the amount of team fouls, he said he is optimistic this will change
with maturity.
"I would rather have us over aggressive
and tone it down rather than being under aggressive and try to go higher
with it," Morgan said.
Williams, a junior college transfer from
Dixie Junior College in Utah, said he is still adjusting to the Division
I level of basketball.
"I've got to adjust," Williams said. "Junior
college to Division I is a big step."
LBSU opened up a 21-point lead on Team
Fokus with less than six minutes to play in the first half and closed the
half leading 58-40.
The second half saw Team Fokus slowly trim
the lead and benefit from an LBSU scoring drought that lasted for more
than four minutes to pull within two points on a 13-0 run.
Morgan said that he was using a pressing
defense with the intentions of wearing out the opposition.
The result, "It looked like we wore ourselves
down," Morgan said.
Morgan said most of his players came out
in the second half thinking the game had been won.
"This is not easy, this is hard work,"
Morgan said.
The 49ers finished strong at the end.
They began to hit free throws and the game
was sealed by an electrifying jam by Ramel "Rock" Lloyd to push the score
over
100 points. The jam came in an 18-2 run
during the last five minutes of the game.
Offensively, LBSU had few problems. Overall,
the 49ers shot more than 51 percent from the field. |
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