Long Beach Falls, 74-54, to Gauchos

Cal State Long Beach, its once-promising season fading fast, disappeared again Thursday night and lost to UC Santa Barbara, 74-54, before a crowd of 4,326 at the Campus Events Center.

The 49ers are 7-10 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn after being 5-1 in early January.

“Six weeks ago, I thought we were a decent and confident club,” said Coach Ron Palmer, whose team is 12-17 overall.

The 49ers were neither decent nor confident against the Gauchos and lost their sixth straight game.

But they were consistent. They made 11 of 31 field goal attempts (35.5%) each half.

The Gauchos, who have won three straight games, had plenty of offense. They hit 61.5% of their shots in the second half and 55.4% for the game.

That shooting enabled them to raise their record to 14-11 overall and 9-7 in the PCAA, where they are in second place.

Santa Barbara’s had three top guns:

--Brian Vaughns, who made 11 of 16 shots and scored 23 points.

--Brian Shaw, 8 of 14, 19 points.

--Carrick DeHart, 6 of 9, 18 points.

DeHart scored 15 points in the second half, including three three-pointers as the Gauchos pulled steadily away, leading by as many as 24 points.

Long Beach got 18 points from DeAnthony Langston, but Morlon Wiley, who scored 32 against Santa Barbara earlier in the season, had only 7.

The 49ers had an especially frigid 5:25 in the first half when they went scoreless while the Gauchos increased a 12-10 lead to 21-10.

The 49ers narrowed the gap to 34-26 by halftime but came no closer.

Long Beach ends its regular season at Cal State Fullerton Saturday night. The 49ers can lose again and still make the PCAA tournament--if University of the Pacific loses its last game.