Mistakes Cost Long Beach Women, 88-74 : No. 1 Tennessee Is Helped by 49er Fouls, Turnovers and Inconsistency

As national showdowns go, put the Saturday afternoon women’s basketball game between No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Cal State Long Beach in the “If only . . . “ category.

As in:

--If only the 49ers had “come together as a team” before they opened their season by losing Thursday night to unranked Louisiana State and again Saturday to the Volunteers, 88-74.

--If only the 49ers had a dependable front line to go with their stellar backcourt of Penny Toler and Traci Waites.

--If only the Volunteers (4-0) weren’t so tenacious on defense--Tennessee caused 27 turnovers and had 12 steals and 6 blocked shots--and hadn’t shut down Long Beach’s vaunted fast break.

--If only this game were played two months from now, at Long Beach.

“This is probably the worst start in Long Beach history,” 49er Coach Joan Bonvicini said of her 0-2 team. “But we came together as a team. We lacked some chemistry (before).”

Chemistry is not the only element the 49ers lacked Saturday as they played inconsistently andhad a disastrous first half in front of 8,203 at Thompson-Boling Arena.

This game, which had been trumpeted as an early-season showdown, was played after the men’s game between Tennessee and Tennessee Chattanooga, which drew 20,635. Perhaps 15,000 of those fans stayed for the women’s game, but after the lopsided first half, during which the Volunteers took a 40-27 lead, people headed for the exits.

Had more fans stayed around, they would have seen the 49ers pull within 5 points with a rejuvenated running game. But the deficit steadily increased as Long Beach committed 27 personal fouls in the second half.

“They’re so explosive,” Tennessee Coach Pat Summitt said. “We were up by 15, and when I looked up, they were within 6. (But) we responded well at the line. They put us there.”

The Volunteers had a 6-point lead, 51-45, with 13:09 left. That fluctuated until the 49ers pulled within 5 at 11:42 on a basket by Waites, who led all scorers with 25 points.

But Tennessee iced the game at the free-throw line, which accounted for 12 of the Volunteers’ 14 points in a 2:46 span.

Toler played well in spots and scored 20 points. For the Volunteers, forward Bridgette Gordon, a 1988 Olympian, scored 20 points, as did center Shelia Frost.

The 49ers are in good shape in one sense: They know where their faults lie. And, according to Bonvicini, they will be dealt with promptly.

“We’re are going to make some changes in the lineup,” Bonvicini promised, making it sound vaguely like a threat.

Casting the most brilliant glare: the 49ers’ lack of any front-line scoring and precious little rebounding. Also, zero bench help.

Tennessee’s front line combined for 53 points; Long Beach’s three front-line players had 6 points, 4 in the first half. Long Beach was outrebounded, 53-45.

The 49ers had 7 points from their bench in Thursday’s loss to LSU and 9 Saturday.

Toler was benched at the start of the game after she missed the team plane Friday. The 49ers had already missed their connection in Atlanta and had a 4-hour layover, so Bonvicini released her players to roam the cavernous Hartsfield International Airport.

Toler set off with her mind on shopping and her watch on another time zone. She returned to the gate to find the team--and her starting position--gone. All that for a pair of pants.

But she didn’t stay on the bench long. She came in at 16:42 and promptly missed on her first shot, her signature pullup jumper.

Toler missed with alarming regularity Saturday, going 10 of 23 from the field. And the 49ers shot only 43%, not much of an improvement on Thursday’s dismal performance of 42%.

Bonvicini was given her first technical foul of the season with 6:03 left. With Tennessee holding its biggest lead, 20 points, and the officials calling a spate of fouls against Long Beach, Bonvicini blew up.

Even as Tonya Edwards sank the two free throws for Tennessee, an obviously frustrated Bonvicini shouted to her team on the floor: “Hey, you guys, you give ‘em hell. You give it right back.”

The best that could be said about their response to the request was, they tried.

49er Notes

Traci Waites inadvertently invoked the ghost of Long Beach’s most haunting, and taunting, quote against another team. People here well remember Cindy Brown’s assessment 2 years ago of Tennessee’s traditionally well-muscled team as “corn-fed chicks.” Asked Saturday about the Volunteers’ tall and very physical front line, Waites blurted out, “What do they feed them?” Which brought a chorus of, “Corn, of course,” from the assembled media. . . . Long Beach has been included in a six-game television package that the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. has sold to several regional cable outlets. The 49ers’ Feb. 7 game at Washington will be televised. . . . The Tennessee women’s athletic department made more than $40,000 from Saturday’s doubleheader with the Tennessee men. The women get $2 from each ticket sold, which was 20,635. They average 7,000 fans a game and probably will win the attendance sweepstakes among the women’s teams this season.