After losing an NCAA Tournament berth to UC Santa Barbara last Saturday, the Long Beach State men’s basketball team will face Washington State on Wednesday night in the first round of the National Invitational Tournament.
LBSU (22-11) received a No. 7 seed and will travel to Pullman, Wash., to face No. 2-seeded WSU. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Beasley Coliseum, and will be nationally televised on ESPNU.
This marks the ‘Niners sixth appearance in the NIT and first since 2000. They hold an all-time record of 2-5 in the NIT.
The Cougars (19-12), who finished sixth in the Pac-10 Conference, lost in the quarterfinals of their conference tournament to Washington — the eventual tournament champion.
WSU will make its fifth appearance in the NIT, where it holds a 4-4 record and has never faced a Big West team in the tournament.
The Cougars will head into tournament with two straight losses, including an overtime loss to UCLA on March 5 in their regular-season finale. Not to mention, WSU has also failed to string together two consecutive wins since December.
Junior Klay Thompson leads the Cougars and has broken several statistical records for the school. The 6-6 guard averages 22.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. He set a single-season record for the Cougars with 664 points.
Though the Cougars were eliminated in the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament, Thompson set or tied five tournament records, including the single-game mark with 43 points.
However, the 49ers have a junior guard of their own to boast about in Casper Ware. At 5-10, Ware led The Beach to its first Big West regular-season title in four years. The reigning Big West Player of the Year averages 17 points, 4.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game.
The ‘Niners have split their all-time series, 1-1, against WSU. LBSU won the last meeting, 80-74, at the Dayton Tournament in Ohio on Dec. 19, 1975. The Cougars are also 8-2 in their history against current Big West programs.
Teams with the highest seed will host games through the first three rounds of the NIT. At No. 7, LBSU will be on the road should it advance.
NIT’s “Final Four” will meet March 29 and those games, including the tournament championship, will be held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The winner of Wednesday’s matchup will move on to face No. 3 Oklahoma State, which defeated No. 6 Harvard, 71-54.
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