Roughly three years ago around this time, then-freshman Greg Plater and the Long Beach State men’s basketball team were in the middle of what would be a 6-25 season under new head coach Dan Monson.
Now, with Monson in his fourth season and the senior 3-point specialist as the only remnant of that rough campaign, the 49ers will attempt to wrap up the Big West Conference regular-season title Thursday night.
“It starts with the expectations coach Monson brings in,” Plater said Tuesday. “Now we’re living up to them.
“It’s no longer ‘we could win,’ it’s ‘we should win.'”
First-place LBSU (17-10, 11-2 Big West), which has won six consecutive games, will host second-place Cal Poly (14-12, 9-4 Big West) at the Walter Pyramid. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
A win would give The Beach its first regular-season conference title since 2006-07; the same season the ‘Niners last appeared in the NCAA Tournament. While a win Thursday would not guarantee the latter, it would ensure the team a spot in the National Invitation Tournament if it does not win the Big West Tournament in March at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
But that would probably not be a consolation for Monson, who’s been adamant in the past about settling for nothing short of an appearance in the Big Dance.
“This program needs to get where we’re measured by winning championships and not by competing for them,” he said after last season’s 69-64 loss to UC Santa Barbara in the Big West championship game. “Athletics is about winning and anything short of that is disappointing. … To say we’re going to have a moral victory because we came within five points of going to the NCAA tournament, no.
“I didn’t come to Long Beach State to finish second.”
A win would also guarantee LBSU the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament, as well as the first-round noon slot against the No. 8 seed on March 10.
Attempting to hold off the 49ers’ celebration for at least another game will be the Mustangs, who had their own six-game winning streak snapped in a 59-56 nonconference loss to Northern Arizona on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer last Saturday.
The first time LBSU and Cal Poly met this season in San Luis Obispo, the 49ers limited the Mustangs to 18 first-half points en route to a 69-53 victory.
But that was late December.
“The biggest thing is we need to respect [Cal Poly],” Plater said. “They’ve definitely gotten better since then.
“We just need to focus on defense.”
Good ol’ technology
The LBSU marketing department had a little fun with a sound byte from Cal Poly head coach Joe Callero, who — like any coach of any sport in the country — said, “I think we have the best home-court advantage.”
In a 46-second promotional YouTube video — in which Callero also said, most likely out of context, “I don’t think much about Long Beach right now” — his comments are looped. It also reminds viewers that LBSU is undefeated at home (6-0) in Big West play.
The marketing team did not stop there, taking a more comedic approach without twisting any words in a separate video for Saturday’s home finale against UC Santa Barbara.
As Plater and Tristan Wilson — dressed in white T-shirts — make their way through the Pyramid entrance with Prospector Pete guarding the door, teammates Larry Anderson and Eugene Phelps are stopped.
That’s because the duo is instead clad in the familiar black-and-yellow Maniacs attire.
“It’s ‘White Out Night,'” Wilson tells Anderson and Phelps midway through the 38-second clip.
The first 4,000 fans will receive free white T-shirts. The game, which will be nationally-televised on ESPN2, is scheduled for a 5:05 p.m. tipoff.
About those Gauchos
Fourth-place UCSB (14-11, 7-6 Big West), the defending conference champion, has seemingly mirrored last season’s LBSU team that failed to string together three consecutive victories until the end of the season.
The Gauchos have not won three straight contests since a three-game nonconference stretch from Dec. 1 to Dec. 15. In that span, UCSB shocked then-No. 22 UNLV on the road in Las Vegas.
Now, heading into Thursday’s meeting with Cal State Northridge, the Gauchos are a surprising 3-4 in their last seven games. Despite the struggles, Plater said the 49ers know that fortune can quickly turn around.
“[UCSB] has two of the best scorers in the league and the reigning Big West Player of the Year (Orlando Johnson),” Plater said. “We definitely respect them a lot.”
Gaining their own respect
After defeating Montana in an ESPN BracketBuster contest last Saturday, the 49ers moved into the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll on Monday.
LBSU is ranked 19th, while Montana dropped from No. 16 to No. 21.
Big West Tournament tickets
Single-session tickets for both the men’s and women’s Big West Tournament in Anaheim went on sale Tuesday at the Honda Center box office. Tickets are also available at www.ticketmaster.com.
Prices range from $22 to $34, while Big West student tickets are $10 with an ID. All-session passes are $64, or $144 for a courtside view.
According to an LBSU release, Long Beach State students will receive free tickets for all games at the Honda Center, and the athletic department will sponsor two free tournament buses to shuttle students to and from the Honda Center for as long as the 49ers play in the tournament.
Meanwhile, first-round women’s action will be hosted by the top-4 seeds at campus sites March 8. Tickets are $10, while Big West student tickets are $5. The four first-round winners will move on to the Honda Center when the tournament resumes March 11.
For more information, visit www.bigwesttourney2011.com.
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