The Beach entered Saturday night’s contest coming off a heartbreaking overtime loss to CSU Bakersfield and they looked to get back on track at home inside of a packed Walter Pyramid on “ASI Night.” A decisive push in the final three minutes would help seal an 85-76 victory over a surging UCSD team.
“It was a great bounce back, Thursday was really disappointing, it was a game that we had up four with 40 seconds to go,” head coach Dan Monson said. “I think this is a very good team that is inconsistent because we aren’t where we want to be defensively.”
The sense of urgency from The Beach was on display coming out of the gate scorching hot with a 13-2 run to open up the game. A four-point play from junior guard Jadon Jones five feet behind the three-point line was the exclamation point to the fiery beginning.
From that point, LBSU’s eight turnovers would squander their ability to grow their lead, with the largest lead of the game being ten just four minutes into the first half. They allowed the co-conference leading Tritons to hang around despite a slow start from their star redshirt senior Bryce Pope.
Pope had been the recipient of two of the previous three Big West Player of the Week awards and had torched The Beach in the team’s first meeting just weeks prior with 26 points.
A strong defensive effort from both sides led to a particularly low-scoring opening half with LBSU in possession of the lead throughout. It wasn’t until the closing seconds when UCSD’s junior guard Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones hit a step-back three-pointer at the buzzer to capture their first lead of the game, going into the break up 36-34.
The second half would begin with the sharp-shooter Pope finding his stroke, scoring the first ten points for Tritons to begin the frame and bolster his game-high 22 points.
Long Beach State’s offense would ignite out of the timeout, propelling themselves back into the contest. A Jones block on defense led to a fast break and himself being rewarded on the other end, converting on a tough finish in the lane to tie the game at 46.
“My team does a great job of being positive with me,” Jones said. “All my teammates and coaches just say keep shooting. They believe in me and I believe in myself.”
Jones would be one of five players on The Beach to reach double-figures in scoring along with both junior forwards Aboubacar and Lassina Traore, sophomore guard A.J. George and senior guard Marcus Tsohonis. Tsohonis would be at the forefront of The Beach’s comeback with 13 of his team-high 18 points coming in a second-half flurry.
The Tsohonis explosion would bring LBSU to a 59-50 lead just minutes after being down big. It was the three-point shooting of UC San Diego that allowed them to remain in contention, responding with a 10-3 run of their own.
The two-way star Jones’ intensity would once again lift The Beach to another nine-point lead just minutes after the Triton’s push. The resiliency of UCSD to fight back at the hands of the long ball would resurface and erase the deficit, being down 71-70 with 3:34 remaining.
LBSU would go on to outscore the Tritons 14-5 from that point. A defensively active and aggressive Aboubacar Traore would pick up his fifth foul to send UCSD to the free throw line but UCSD would proceed to miss six free-throws in the second half.
The Sandpit student section gave The Beach a true homecourt advantage with their efforts preventing the Tritons from connecting on the crucial late-game attempts, on the way to LBSU securing the 85-76 win, improving them to 6-5 and 14-9 overall.