The Long Beach State men’s basketball team will take its 12-game winning streak and hopes of an NCAA at-large bid into Omaha, Nebraska when it takes on Creighton University on Saturday.
The ‘Niners (19-6, 12-0 Big West Conference) will play its final non-conference game of the regular season against the Bluejays (22-5, 12-4 Missouri Valley Conference) on Saturday at 7 p.m. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.
When the match-up was announced three weeks ago, Creighton was the No.13-ranked team in the country, but has since dropped from the polls after a three-game skid.
LBSU head coach Dan Monson said despite the Jay’s losing streak, the team is still very talented and the Beach will have to continue improving and working on itself in order to be successful.
“We cannot get caught up in who we’re playing, we’ve got to get caught up in how we’re playing.”
Monson added: “I think mentally we’ve got to continue to get better. We did not execute in the half-court sets as well as we wanted to this weekend. As soon as we got ahead our intensity and focus drifted, and that can’t happen in the games coming up.”
LBSU will need to contain Creighton’s dynamic offense, which ranks first in the nation in field goal percentage (.511), third in assists (18.4 per game) and tenth in scoring (79.9 points per game).
The Jays are led by sophomore forward Doug McDermott, who ranks third in the country in scoring, averaging 22.7 points per game. McDermott Creighton in rebounding as well, averaging 8.1 per contest.
The John R. Wooden Award candidate is also a proficient 3-point shooter for a 6-foot-7 forward. He is shooting 50 percent (44 of 88) from behind the arc on the season.
The Beach will look to the veteran leadership of reigning Big West player of the week Casper Ware, who poured in a career-high 38 points in a 76-67 victory over the University of Pacific on Thursday.
The senior guard followed up the performance with a record-setting night in Saturday’s win over UC Davis. Ware delivered two assists in the contest, bringing his career total to 509 and making him the all-time leader in that category at LBSU. He passed Billy Walker, who played for the 49ers from 1984-1988.
Ware said in order to beat Creighton, the team must focus on playing well from start to finish without becoming complacent, while addressing “the focus level and putting in the whole 40 minutes.”
Ware added: “Sometimes we get away with playing half the game or 30 minutes. We are not stopping teams that we should and keeping them under 60 (points). That is our goal before every game.”
After the matchup with Creighton, the Beach returns home for three straight games at the Pyramid, beginning with Big West-rival UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday at 8 p.m