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Is it better to have led and lost than to never have led at all?
Although plenty of things seemed to be working against Long Beach State men’s basketball on Thursday night at Walter Pyramid, the Beach still had chances to come back and beat UC Santa Barbara in a key late season Big West Conference clash.
That’s what makes the wild ending and 76-74 loss to UCSB so much harder to swallow for LBSU.
“That was a tough loss because our guys really played their hearts out,” LBSU coach Dan Monson said.
As the second half clock went under two minutes, the Beach erased an 11-point deficit late and took a 69-68 lead on Marcus Tsohonis’ 3-pointer. USCB star Ajay Mitchell came right back down for an And-1 finish, and after a missed layup at the other end, Josh Pierre-Louis’ And-1 made it 74-69 UCSB with 1:19 remaining.
Despite only going 13/22 from the free throw line in the game, LBSU did get to the stripe twice late to cut the lead to 74-72.
With less than 39 second left UCSB tried to dribble down as much clock as possible, and then Mitchell was left at the top of the arc as the shot clock ran down. He made contact with LBSU guard Jason Hart Jr. just off the elbow and the foul was called for the block. Mitchell made both free throws for a 76-72 lead with :14 left. He finished with a game-high 37 points.
Monson agreed that the questionable call of a game-changing foul made the loss sting a little more, but that Mitchell has more of a problem than the refereeing.
“We just had no answer for Ajay Mitchell,” he said. “There’s a reason why he was (Big West POY last year) and he controlled the game right down to the end.”
LBSU stayed in the game with the press and turnovers, but Tsohonis missed the would-be game-tying free throws with three seconds left, and then off the second miss another close call/video review gave UCSB the ball.
“AJ George swears, and I trust him, that he didn’t touch the ball,” Monson said. “The problem is that we don’t have all the camera angles.”
Tsohonis even got a steal with 2.7 left and had a game-winning three go long and left.
“In a close game like that you’ve got to make your free throws and I’m not talking about Marcus’ because we missed nine of them in the second half,” Monson added. “They missed one for the game. That’s the difference in close games like that.”
A poor start to a 28/67 cold shooting night put LBSU (18-13, 10-9) behind early and the home team only led for 1:35 of the 40 minutes. Tsohonis had a team-high 25 points and four steals while Lassina Traore recorded another double-double 12 points and 12 rebounds. Aboubacar Traore contributed seven points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and two blocks. Jadon Jones chipped in 18 points and AJ George had 10.
UCSB (16-13, 9-10) was 9/17 from 3-point range as Mitchell and Cole Anderson both made four while building the 37-28 halftime lead.
Monson said he was pleased with the first career start of the freshman point guard Hart Jr. who finished the game with five assists and only one turnover in 20 minutes.
LBSU still trailed by nine points with six minutes left, but good defense and rebounding helped the Beach claw back. LBSU outscored UCSB 46-39 in the second half.
“We’re playing hard and really good in spurts, we’ve just got one more week to get consistent,” said Monson.
The Beach hosts UC Davis in the regular season finale on Saturday at 3 p.m. A win could help LBSU get as high as the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Big West Conference tournament.
As for the disappointment on Thursday night in front of a Greek Night crowd of 2,255, Monson said, “We’re going to flush it, not even watch any of it, and figure out how to beat UC Davis three times, because that would be the scenario if we get going in this tournament and put ourselves on the other side of the bracket from Irvine who is playing the best basketball in (Big West) right now.”
