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Men's
basketball shoots, falls short of Pyramid's
peak
Andrew
De Lara
The month of February has dawned upon us,
and like every year nearing Valentine‘s
Day, we're either floating exultant in the
clouds, or subjected to the wrath of heartbreak
– if not in romance, certainly in
the form of our very own Long Beach State
basketball team.
At
the mercy of a dismal 2-15 overall record
and an embarrassing 0-8 conference start
by the men‘s team, the 18-story architectural
marvel lining Long Beach's skyline has been
anything but convivial on the inside.
The
truly loyal fans inside, myself included,
who dare to hope for a miracle turnaround
are reserved and subdued by careless passing,
turnovers, folding to pressure and one too
many "moral victories," as the
team falls short of a win over and over
again. It's come to a point where the 49er
faithful expect something wrong to happen
in spite of a resounding comeback attempt
from a characteristic 15 point (or more)
deficit.
And
sure enough, they aggressively find a way
to lose the game.
Many
question the current coaching staff at the
helm and their 13-58 record over the past
two seasons, as the players seemingly are
not showing progress over the course of
the schedule.
All
potential displayed during the pre-season
by the team seemingly dissipates, and people
are wondering if this team is realizing
the potential they possess.
"It's
just heartbreaking," Adam Clark, a
fellow student and one of the founding members
of the Beach Patrol student booster group,
said. "Last year we‘d just get
blown out, but this year we've come back
from deficits and close enough to win -
it's just heartbreaking because we have
hope, but we fall short every time."
Long
Beach State's last head coach, Wayne Morgan,
was continually taking lashes from supporters
of the program after winning 13 games his
first season. Wayne went on to become the
head coach at Iowa State after the criticism
lead to his resignation.
The
current staff has won a single road game
in two and a half years and a dismal 13
games overall, and still retains control
of the program.
Often
times I've walked around campus with buddies,
mentioned the men's basketball team and
the prospects for a turnaround season, and
garnered strange looks as well as the common
phrase "we suck," on a normal
basis.
To
those current 49ers on campus, LBSU men's
basketball is a joke, not because we lack
talent, but because we play horribly in
stretches. To them we're bad, and have always
have been bad.
Talk
with longtime (30-40 year) ticket holders
and boosters for men's basketball, and the
common sentiment emitted from these diehard
49ers is that of nostalgia and complete
disbelief in regards to the current state
of the program. These guys have seen LBSU
perennially in the Top 25 in the national
polls and in seven NCAA Tournaments, beating
up on teams such as the respected Kansas
Jayhawks and the Illinois Fighting Illini.
They have also seen 24 players go to the
NBA and 15 All-Americans pass through the
program.
These
men have seen a top-ranked LBSU basketball
team play in the Long Beach Arena at full
capacity, with over 12,000 screaming fans
and a younger Jerry Tarkanian leading LBSU
to victory by way of carnivorously biting
a folded towel to death — and more
recently, sold-out crowds and ESPN appearances
in The Pyramid when it opened in 1994.
They've
witnessed Lute Olsen coaching at The Beach
before he took over at Arizona, they've
seen a younger "Triangle" Tex
Winter, longtime right-hand man of NBA coach
Phil Jackson and inventor of the "triangle
offense," coach at The Beach before
guiding the Bulls and Lakers to NBA world
titles, and finally, they witnessed first-hand,
as recent as the early 1990s, a LBSU program
that beat the then No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks
on their home floor by double digits on
national television, before going on to
the NCAA Tournament and beating up on the
Illinois Fighting Illini. Two players on
that LBSU team, Bryon Russel and Lucious
Harris, are both currently playing in the
NBA.
These
men have witnessed the rich basketball tradition
enjoyed at LBSU — notice the past
tense.
The
question is: why have a storied basketball
program like LBSU fallen from it's visible
pedestal on the national basketball scene?
Why do a program, which plays in an architectural
marvel in the form of an 18-story Pyramid
on an increasingly popular and academically
respected campus, not continued in its tradition
and win games?
Why
does a program, which has been established
for so long in the Big West conference,
missing the conference tournament for the
first time over 20 years (two times in a
row at that, under the current coaching
regime)?
And
why, in all its misery, did our established
division-one program lose to division-two
UC Davis this past weekend? Heartbreak is
on the verge of turning to rage.
Could
it be the coaches and their less-than-acceptable
record over the last two and a half years?
Perhaps something else? The players will
point to their own deficiencies on the court,
but ultimately, who is held responsible
for buffering their deficiencies?
One
thing I do know is that these long-time
boosters and supporters of the program are
on the verge of tuning out, due to the perception
that the program is not being run by the
right people. If that's not enough, students,
the most important part of a collegiate
athletics atmosphere, are tuning out as
well.
This
means declining season ticket holder sales,
declining overall ticket sales, decreased
booster donations, and the overall tarnish
on the image of the university as a whole,
simply from the decline of the school's
designated flag ship sport.
Something
has to change, and soon, or that 18-story
pointed arena will put the nearby ocean's
vacuity to shame. That, and Valentine's
Day for 49er fans, regardless of romantic
ties (or lack thereof), will undoubtedly
be shrouded in a dark cloud of misery.
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