OK, so maybe we haven’t been here before.
The spring semester may not be in session yet, but the Long Beach State men’s basketball team’s growing confidence was put to test Saturday night at the Walter Pyramid.
The 49ers passed and, in the process, won their season-high sixth consecutive game.
LBSU (11-8, 6-0 Big West Conference) seized control with a 10-2 run over the final 2:48, and junior point guard Casper Ware’s fallaway jump shot with 10.1 seconds left gave The Beach a 70-69 win over the University of the Pacific.
“Last year, we lose these games,” Ware said. “Now, we’re finally pulling out these games.”
A little luck along the way doesn’t hurt, either.
Not long ago, this was a club that had a hard enough time stringing three wins together. It’s funny how wins can make those memories seem like eons ago.
Not bad for a team that won just eight conference games and finished at .500 in league play a season ago.
The comeback started in the huddle with the 49ers trailing by six — and eventually seven after Demetrece Young’s free throw after the timeout — with 2:49 to play, LBSU head coach Dan Monson said.
“I said, ‘Guys, this is our next step as a team,'” Monson continued. “‘We have got to stay together and find a way to win a game like this.'”
With an electric crowd of 4,732 mostly on their side, Ware and senior guard Greg Plater took over.
With the 49ers trailing 67-63, Plater drilled a 3-pointer from the corner with 1:12 to play. Then, his backcourt mate followed with consecutive go-ahead jumpers — both of which were released from almost identical spots just inside the top of the key.
“I trusted him and … a pretty good guy to trust,” Monson said of Ware, who had made just 4-of-12 from the field up to that point.
LBSU has seemingly matured to a point where last year’s struggles, coupled with back-to-back grueling nonconference schedules, have started to pay dividends.
“It’s been three years [together] for all of us,” Plater said of the team’s core. “Guys are really starting to believe in coach Monson and the defense and our system.
“When guys see that once we play together and do what we’re supposed to do, we can win games like at Santa Barbara and Cal Poly — and games like tonight where we were coming from behind with two minutes left.”
The defensive end is where the 49ers have made the biggest adjustment. LBSU limited UOP to 29 second-half points after a 40-point outburst in the first 20 minutes. In fact, in the last four contests, The Beach has limited its opponents to 47-of-119 (39.5 percent) shooting combined in the second half.
After downplaying the first half of the win streak, the fourth-year head coach started to envision how early wins against the conference’s elite could ultimately decide the Big West regular-season champion.
“This was our best game of the four (conference) home games, and against the best team (of the four),” Monson added.
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