Victory • Junior
guard Kevin Houston shoots the ball at
the net during homecoming weekend against
UC Santa Barbara. Houston finished the
game with 14 points (top). President F.
King Alexander and former President Robert
C. Maxson
cheered on the men and women’s basketball teams Saturday for the homecoming
festivities (middle). Freshman forward Kaiti O’Brien battles with Pacific
to recover a loose ball for Long Beach State. The women won 77-54 and ended their
two-game loosing streak in The Walter Pyramid Saturday (bottom). Tracey Roman
/ Online Forty-Niner
49er basketball attracts fans to double-header
By Andrew De Lara
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
Loyal 49er fans, alumni and students filled The Walter Pyramid Saturday for the
homecoming basketball double-header when the men played host to arch-rival UC
Santa Barbara and the women battled the Pacific Tigers.
The crowd was energized with props, posters and balloons, but the air was quickly
deflated as the Gauchos (10-11 overall, 3-6 in the Big West) put a damper on
the afternoon, defeating the men 81-78.
The women played the first game of the double-header and delivered
a lambasting to the University of Pacific Tigers, 77-54 with
the help of senior guard Crystal
McCutcheon’s game-high 26 points.
The crowd poured into The Walter Pyramid for the men’s
match against the Gauchos, but was subdued as UCSB jumped out
in the first half to a 39-34 lead
with the help of 12 points from Gaucho senior guard Cecil Brown.
The second half saw The Beach charge back following a nine-point deficit, taking
the lead, 76-72 with 1:42 remaining on the game clock.
Hopes of a comeback win were high, as The Beach came back from
a 20-point deficit and a shocking 37-23 disadvantage at half-time
Thursday night versus the Big
West Conference cellar-dwellar Cal Poly Mustangs, with the help of junior guard
Louis Darby’s 15 points and spirited play.
But Saturday wasn’t quite as forgiving, despite another
late-game surge.
“
I think we offensive-rebounded the ball a little bit, got to
the basket a little bit more and weren’t standing on
relying on the perimeter game as much,” said 49er Head
Coach Larry Reynolds, referring to the comeback run. “But
more than anything, we got the ball in and around the basket
and got some shots close range.”
But what seemed a favorable late-game situation to the 49er faithful on hand,
quickly deteriorated, as the Gauchos regained leverage after back-to-back three-point
plays were executed by Gaucho guards Joe See and Brown, brining the score to
78-76 in favor of the Gauchos.
A play run by The Beach (11-11, 6-5 in Big West play) following a time-out failed,
and momentum failed to swing with it. Senior guard, Jibril Hodges who led The
Beach on the night with 24 points, tossed the ball out of bounds.
“
He went baseline, got pinned on the baseline and was trying
to get the ball out to Aaron [Nixon], but it was kind of a
tough angle pass, and unfortunately for us, it went out of
bounds,” Reynolds said.
And with the ball went the game as Gauchos Brown and Michael Chambers hit key
free throws with less than 16 seconds left in the contest to seal the deal, 81-78.
A couple of desperate three-point shots by 49er junior guards Nixon (11 points)
and Kevin Houston (14 points) rattled in and out to prevent a tie, overtime or
winning shot.
“
Seventeen turnovers were what lost it for us tonight,” Reynolds
said, referring to the multiple unforced turnovers committed
by The Beach through ball handling errors and missed shots,
including missed dunks.
But the men, although losing on their home floor during homecoming and against
an arch-rival, still retains their third-place ranking in the Big
West conference. The UCI Anteaters and the Pacific Tigers sit atop the league,
while the 49ers sit comfortably above the fourth-place Mustangs.
“
I’m sure they wanted to win this game as much as anyone,” Reynolds
said. “It was homecoming for us, but one good thing about
young men is that they’re resilient. By Monday I think
they’ll be ready to go. We have to be ready to go–we
play against Fullerton on Wednesday.”
The women are 15-7 overall and 8-2 in the Big West. They travel to play the Mustangs
Feb. 16 and the Gauchos Feb. 18. The men play in
The Walter Pyramid Wednesday against CSU Fullerton at 7:35 p.m.
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