The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2024-25 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
The final piece of the puzzle was set today for new coach Chris Acker and Long Beach State men’s basketball. Acker was hired in April, hired his coaches in May and finished filling out the roster with mostly local transfers in June.
Today Acker officially set the schedule which features 15 home games, local road trips and early Big West Conference games.
“We got exactly what we wanted,” Acker said. “We didn’t want to travel across the country, we wanted to give ourselves a chance to get (home) and prepare for the next game. The biggest thing was that we want4ed to bring some teams here that haven’t played here in a while with names that people can recognize.”
After hosting an exhibition against CalTech on Oct. 28, the regular season gets underway on Nov. against LaVerne at Walter Pyramid. The Beach will then visit South Dakota State and San Francisco for the first road trip. South Dakota State reached the NCAA Tournament last year, and San Francisco is one of five West Coast Conference opponents on the schedule.
Acker got a pair of quality mid majors to visit Long Beach in November as Portland (Nov. 16) and Fresno State (Nov. 23) come to Walter Pyramid.
LBSU will travel to Henderson, Nevada for the Ball Dawgs Classic Thanksgiving tournament alongside UNC Greensboro, UTEP and San Jose State.
Big West play starts early this season with games against Cal State Fullerton (Dec. 5) and Hawai’i (Dec. 7) moved up to make room for the complete 20-game round-robin schedule for the 11 teams.
The Beach will visit San Diego and Pepperdine in December before hosting La Sierra (Dec. 22) and resuming conference play against UC Riverside (Jan. 2).
The Big West Championship tournament is in Henderson March 12-15.
