The Beach men’s basketball earned their third win in a row on Wednesday night at the Walter Pyramid to improve to 6-4 in the young season after a dominant win over Life Pacific.
The Beach’s bench contributed mightily in this one by adding 44 points, half of the team total.
“As a coach, you schedule a couple games a year where you are hopeful that you can get guys in, get some confidence in some of the younger guys, in that regard, it was a good game for us,” head coach Dan Monson said.
A collective effort was on full display with seven players scoring eight points or more. The duo of senior forward Amari Stroud and junior forward Aboubacar Traore each posted near double-doubles.
Junior guard Isa Silva started the contest hot, scoring all eight of his points within the first seven minutes of the game. The Beach would later go a 12-0 scoring run to break open the contest, leading by as much as 21 before halftime.
The game also saw The Beach have its fair share of struggles, shooting just 19% from three on 5-26 shooting as well as turning over the ball 23 times.
With the shots behind the arc not falling, The Beach would resort to living in the paint where they more than doubled the Warriors’ 26 points, scoring 54 down low.
“The whole game getting to the paint was the biggest thing for us to be honest, because of size, we were a lot bigger than them, stronger, more athletic. Getting to the paint was the number one thing coach had preached all week,” sophomore guard AJ George said.
The Beach gave the Sandpit plenty to cheer for en route to their first twenty-point win of the season. A pair of highlight reel dunks in the second half starting with a 360 slam by Aboubacar Traore on a breakaway and an AJ George poster lit up the arena, getting everyone on their feet.
Another key component to LBSU’s victory was the ability to play defense without fouling. The Warriors made only one lone trip to the free-throw line late in the second half with the game already well out of reach.
“Our defensive discipline is very good, but at the end result, they also smoked 4 or 5 lay-ins that teams in our division would make. They had some open threes that people in our league would make, we just got to continue to form our identity at the end of the floor,” Monson said.
With LBSU taking care of business against an inferior Life Pacific team, the attention now shifts to Sunday’s primetime showdown against the USC Trojans in Los Angeles.
The Beach has already gone to Ann Arbor this season and upset the Michigan Wolverines in a 94-86 thriller and will look to pull off another and keep the momentum going as conference play approaches.