Thursday, December 3, 1998

Long Beach State men's basketball team squeaks by Division II Toros

By Eric Boyum

On-Line Forty-Niner

Dr. Jekyl, meet Mr. Hyde.

Before a crowd of 1,760 at The Pyramid, it appeared that two different Long Beach State basketball teams showed up against Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Two blocked shots by 49er forward D'Cean Bryant on the Toro's final three-point attempts eeked-out a 59-56 victory.

The (3-3) 49ers - who made only eight of 26 shots in the first half - needed a 20-3 spurt in the second half to overcome the Division II Toros.

"We had nine turnovers in the first half and four in the second half," 49er Head Coach Wayne Morgan said. "If we would have turned it over as many times as we normally do, and had 23 turnovers, we would have surely lost."

After the 49er offense turned its offensive run into a 47-38 lead, it seemed to stall with under nine minutes remaining.

"As a team, when we get the lead, we have to learn to put teams away," 49er guard Ramel Lloyd said.

49er forward Grant Stone, who played for his first time this season due to a nagging foot injury, said the team is still learning to play together.

"Coach has a good analogy for this team," Stone said. "He [Morgan] told us that when you are young and playing video games, you have to put a lot of quarters into the machine before you get good.

Each game, we are putting in a lot of quarters."

49er forward Mate Milisa said he believes that he, along with others, need to step up their individual efforts to improve collectively as a team.

"We have big games coming up," Milisa said. "It is not going to get any easier."

Adding to the pressure of a .500 winning percentage through six games is the fact that the four next non-conference opponents make up the most difficult part of the schedule.

Morgan said he would like to have more wins, but that the team is slowly improving.

"Lets face it, we beat Loyola [Marymount] in overtime. We had to hold off San Diego State. And we had to play hard tonight to win," Morgan said. "We could have made one more shot and beat Pepperdine to be 4-2, or we could have missed some shots and been 1-5."