Analyzing Why 49ers Didn’t Live Up to Their Promise : College basketball: Seth Greenberg looks back on his first season as head coach and tries to explain what went wrong in the disappointing 11-16 record.

“Blame it on me,” said Cal State Long Beach basketball Coach Seth Greenberg, with a trace of sarcasm beneath his good nature. “I’m surprised I didn’t see myself hanging in effigy from the ceiling of the gym.”

Greenberg’s first season as a head coach has produced an unexpected 11-16 record, with final bits of wreckage expected to be strewn Friday night in the Long Beach Arena when the 49ers play top-ranked Nevada Las Vegas in the Big West Conference tournament. The 49ers have already lost twice to UNLV by 51 and 47 points.

Feedback from fans has been divided. After a recent loss, a downcast Greenberg reportedly told a group of boosters that someone had written Athletic Director Corey Johnson urging that Greenberg be fired.

Johnson, who acknowledged that he has received letters about the coach, indicated he is solidly behind the man he hired last April to replace Joe Harrington. “It’s difficult moving up one chair (from assistant to head coach),” Johnson said. “I think Seth has handled it well. It’s a growing period. These are things everybody’s gone through.”

In an interview last week, Greenberg indicated he would not back down against his detractors. “We’ve spoiled these people,” he said. “They have short memories, like any other fans. The last three years we were geniuses. The thing that irritates you is that these people don’t appreciate what you’ve done for three years. We built the expectations, they didn’t.”

The pressure from losing has led recently to bickering between Greenberg and the players. On Tuesday night, upset at the way they were practicing and also because some of them had missed study hall, he kicked the whole team out of the gym.

The 49ers were 23-9 a year ago. This season they were expected to be one of the better teams in the nation, even though the popular Harrington, who rebuilt the program, had left for a lucrative job at the University of Colorado, and highly competitive point guard Tyrone Mitchell, who rarely made a turnover, had graduated.

Greenberg, 34, who assisted Harrington for three years, was ecstatic and confident when named to his first head coaching job. “I have no fear or apprehension,” he had said. “I feel I can take some credit in the success we’ve had here.”

With nine players returning, optimism flowed freely. “We know we can go out there and easily win 20 or more games,” senior forward Kevin Cutler said before the first game.

But on opening night in Denton, Tex., Long Beach lost, 94-82, to North Texas, which had won four games last season. The 49ers seemed out of control on offense. Their supposedly vaunted full-court press was repeatedly shredded, but a stunned Greenberg never changed to a half-court defense. Afterward, he said, “We totally self-destructed, and that was my fault.”

Hopes fell flat quickly. The 49ers had as much difficulty with mediocre teams as with good ones. They barely beat Chicago State, which this week was ranked 283rd out of 296 Division I teams in USA Today’s computer rankings. And they struggled to victories over Cal State Northridge (273rd) and Harvard (262nd).

USA Today ranked the 49ers 162nd.

Greenberg tried to remain optimistic but often looked depressed, frustrated or angry. On the bench, he ranted at officials, incurring six technical fouls. In the locker room, he scorched his players for not “competing.” After one of many close defeats, he kicked a chunk out of a corridor wall at UC Santa Barbara.

Though the team at times looked fundamentally unsound, Greenberg said, “I don’t question my ability to teach.”

He knew his inexperience would be pointed to if the season went bad. “People are going to say if we lose, it’s because we’re not well-coached,” Greenberg said in November. Still, that contention does not sit well with him.

“Santa Barbara was picked to finish third (in the conference), yet is anyone upset with Jerry Pimm?” Greenberg asked.

(Santa Barbara, under the veteran Pimm, finished 13-14 overall and 8-10 in the Big West, a game ahead of 7-11 Long Beach, which ended in a three-way tie for sixth.)

But there have been circumstances beyond Greenberg’s control.

“I think in all fairness to Seth, he doesn’t have a point guard,” said Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian. “Any time you lose a point guard, it makes a big, big difference.”

The 49ers, who were 3-8 in games decided by five points or less, missed Mitchell’s strong will to win, as well as his strong body, which made their press so effective. His replacement, slender Bobby Sears, was erratic. Though he gained confidence and improved toward the end of the season, he averaged 2.6 turnovers a game and only 3.4 assists.

“We had three fifth-year seniors last year,” Greenberg said, referring to Mitchell, guard Darrell Faulkner and Rudy Harvey, a forward who shot 60% from the field. “That gave us a toughness you don’t get from sophomores. You’re not going to win a lot of close games playing three sophomores.”

The sophomore starters were forward Bryon Russell, center Chris Tower and guard Lucious Harris, who last season was the Big West freshman of the year.

Harris, who averaged 20 points a game, was moved to point guard for a time when Sears had problems running the team. “It was difficult for Lucious to handle a new role,” Greenberg said. “He had the burden of leadership, and as a sophomore he didn’t want it.”

Though the 49ers gave up an average of 80 points a game, the problems on offense were even greater.

As an assistant, Greenberg had recruited athletic-type players to fit the fast style of play. But as it turned out, the athletes could not shoot. The 49ers shot 42% from the field and 11 times were below 40%.

Their shot selection, terrible early, improved in the second half when they finally began to get the ball inside. “You look at the shot charts and you can’t argue where the balls have been shot from,” Greenberg said.

The inaccuracy was most alarming at the free-throw line, where Long Beach shot only 63%. “We would have five or six more wins if we would have shot 70% or even 65%,” Greenberg said.

Last Saturday night against Pacific, after the 49ers had shot 80% from the line in an 84-78 victory, Greenberg observed, “When we make free throws, I’m a lot smarter.”

Greenberg intends to use Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino’s system in an attempt to make his players better free-throw shooters next season. “We’re going to take the shot down to its simplest form--setting your hands, setting the ball and then shooting it straight,” he said hopefully.

Greenberg dismissed the theory that the close relationship he developed with his players as an assistant prevented him from being as tough as Harrington had been.

“You look at guys who are successful around the country and they all have close relationships with their players,” Greenberg said. “Bobby Cremins (of Georgia Tech) is close with his guys. Mike Krzyzewski (of Duke) is close with his guys.”

There were a few bright spots. Cutler averaged 13 points and seven rebounds. Harris at times displayed his great talent. Sears shot 44% from three-point range. The aggressive Russell helped the 49ers improve their rebounding, and Tower, who is almost 7 feet tall, showed considerable potential.

But forward Frankie Edwards did not improve as much as expected, and Mike Masucci, who averaged nine points last season, averaged only 2.6 and fell into disfavor with Greenberg.

“It was a lot of different things,” Greenberg said, trying to explain why the season caused even more of his hair to fall out. “The basketball gods haven’t been good to us. The ball just didn’t bounce our way.”

As Cutler walked from the gym Tuesday night, he confessed to being a little off on his 20-victory prediction.

“I don’t know, we just didn’t click,” he said. “We had (most of) the same personnel, we just don’t have the same mental attitude, the same confidence, the same desire to win.”

Asked how much of a factor the change in coaching was, Cutler laughed and said, “I don’t know, I’ll have to plead the Fifth on that one. I don’t know, there’s just a lot of pressure on him, I think.”

Greenberg said if he can’t turn things around in two more years he will get out of college basketball. “But I have no doubt we’re going to be successful here,” he added.

Nor do his supporters.

“I have never seen anyone work harder than Seth, and I think we’re fortunate to have him,” said Don Dyer, a Long Beach attorney and longtime 49ers supporter and fund-raiser.

On Monday, at his weekly booster luncheon at the Recreation Park Golf Course, Greenberg showed an edited videotape of last Saturday night’s victory over Pacific.

The tape showed the 49ers making excellent passes, swishing jump shots, getting great rebounding position, playing solid defense and finishing fast breaks with dunks.

What they looked like was a Top 20 team.

It made the season seem like a mirage, and even Greenberg had to laugh.

“Imagine what they do with movies,” he said.