49er
offense stumbles, Spartans win 69-56
By
Andrew De Lara
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
The usually high-octane 49er offense sputtered in The Walter Pyramid Saturday
afternoon, as the San Jose State Spartans handed the Beach their fifth loss
of the season, 69-56.
“
After today’s performance, we’re not as good as we have been, and
we’re not as good as we’re gonna be,” said Head
Coach Larry Reynolds, whose team managed to tally only five assists and a 10.5
percent three-point shot percentage.
“
That’s what non-conference games are for–to try and get ourselves
tuned, primed and ready to go.”
And tuned would serve as an understatement for the 49er faithful in attendance
during the dry spells suffered by The Beach. After jumping to a 6-0 lead less
than five minutes in the game, the 49ers handed over the lead with a layup
by
Spartan Alex Elam with 11:19 left in the first half.
The lead never relinquished as the 49ers headed into the locker rooms at half-time
with a six point deficit. The second half was no better, as the Spartans responded
to every 49er run with resilient scoring streaks of their own.
Junior guard Kevin Houston lead The Beach with 16 points in the losing effort,
while senior forward Shawn Hawkins and junior guard Aaron Nixon rounded out
three players in double figures with 11 and 13 respectively.
“
We have to get better offensively,” Reynolds said. “We focused
a lot defensively this past week. We got their team slowing down, but we didn’t
get the offensive performance that we needed–and that could have been
a matter of us putting too much emphasis this week on trying to defend and
not paying attention to the other end.”
The Beach also struggled with line-ups on the court with outsized post players,
as second chance attempts and match-up problems saw the Spartans get the ball
inside the paint more often than not.
“
We’re gonna face that a lot this year,” said Reynolds, referring
to opponents’ size advantages. “We need to learn how to play smarter
and better in our positioning, especially with our big people, mostly because
we don’t have a lot of length to us.”
Smarter and better is what the 49er faithful are hoping; especially as Big
West conference play slowly approaches.
And despite bumps in the road, senior leaders on the team still have hope of
a successful season.
“
I think we’re going to keep our guard up,” said senior guard Jibril
Hodges.
“
We’re all resilient, we’re all competitors. We had a bad game but
it’s not something we’re going to hold onto.”
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