How Good Are They? 49ers Wonder : After First Loss, Conference Home Opener Tonight Against Las Vegas May Hold Answers

A solemn but confident Jeff Rogers answered the telephone in his Stockton hotel room Monday night, shortly after the Cal State Long Beach men’s basketball team dropped its first game of the season after eight straight wins.

The point guard and most of the 49ers, who had combined to shoot a dismal 32.8% from the floor in the 68-56 Big West Conference loss to University of the Pacific (5-5, 1-1), faced questions about how good Long Beach really is.

“I feel we have a very good team,” said Rogers, who appears to have won the battle with junior transfer Brian Camper for the starting point guard spot. “There’s some real talent on this team. We’ve played some easy teams and that didn’t help our complacency (against Pacific).”

The 49ers were off to their best start since the 1978-79 season, but a soft early season schedule--including wins over a pair of NAIA schools--have made it difficult to assess the team’s progress. The loss to Pacific, which held the 49ers 31 points below their season average, has added to the confusion.

Beginning with tonight’s Big West Conference home opener at 7:30 with 12th-ranked Nevada Las Vegas, the next 19 days should provide some answers. Long Beach plays eight games in that span, including Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. home contest with co-conference favorite New Mexico State and a Jan. 25 nonconference game at No. 6 Kansas.

For some time now, the 49ers have focused on tonight’s game with Las Vegas, the other Big West favorite that has won 29 consecutive games. The 49ers’ loss Monday night removed some of the luster, but it still remains an important game for both teams.

“It will be gut-check time,” Rogers said. “We’ll find out just how much character this team has, just how good we really are.”

Under former Villanova Coach Rollie Massimino, the Runnin’ Rebels are 6-0 overall and 2-0 in Big West play this season.

“It should be a terrific game,” Massimino said. “We’re excited about going. We’ve only had two games on the road.

“Long Beach is very well coached and they have some top players,” he said.

The game will be played in the 49ers’ campus gym, where Long Beach has won its last 15 games. Ticket sales for tonight’s game have been brisk and a standing-room-only crowd in excess of the official sellout figure of 1,900 spectators is expected.

Previous contests with the Runnin’ Rebels have been held at the Long Beach Arena, where the 49ers have fared poorly and crowds dwindled in recent years, causing the financially strapped athletic department to lose money.

After a stinging loss, 96-77, to Las Vegas at the arena last February, 49er Coach Seth Greenberg polled his players.

“To a man, they voted to play all our home games this season in the Gold Mine,” Greenberg said, referring to the new nickname given to the facility by athletic department officials.

Massimino, who visited the 49ers’ campus gym last summer, wonders how his team will fare there, but he isn’t very worried.

“We’re playing in a smaller gym, which is unfamiliar circumstances,” Massimino said. “But that’s OK because all the rest of the teams have to play there too.”

For weeks, the 49ers have pointed to their old gym as perhaps a key asset in their annual attempt to find a way to defeat the Runnin’ Rebels. During the Jerry Tarkanian era, which ended last spring after 19 seasons, Las Vegas dominated the 49ers by winning 25 of 27 contests. Tarkanian never lost in Long Beach.

The campus gym, however, is far different from the roomy Long Beach Arena, which had a hollow sound about it when the game drew small crowds.

“It feels so comfortable in our gym,” Rogers said. “We have a lot of confidence when we play there.”

Greenberg agreed. “There’s no magic in that gym, but there is a comfort zone,” he said.

According to Rogers and others, the 49ers apparently got caught up in all that hoopla prior to Monday night’s loss, especially the part about meeting Las Vegas in the campus gym.

“I had a dream about beating Las Vegas before the Pacific game,” said senior guard Lucious Harris, a four-year starter who has never played on a team that has defeated the Runnin’ Rebels. “If we did beat them it would be nice.”

Apparently, several other 49ers also were dreaming before Monday’s game at Pacific, the team’s fourth road game in eight days.

“We weren’t focused,” said Harris, who carried the team with 25 points, hitting 9 of 19 field goal attempts. He came into the game as the Big West player of the week after leading Long Beach to wins over Eastern Washington and host Fresno State in the Coors Lite Tournament last week. Long Beach opened Big West play Saturday with an 88-73 victory over San Jose State.

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But against Pacific, the four other starters--Rogers, forwards Rod Hannibal and Bryon Russell and center Chris Tower--combined to score 15 points, making only 5 of 30 field goal attempts. Long Beach was 6 of 27 from three-point range.

Before the game, “everyone was talking about Las Vegas, about going home,” Harris said. “Just because I got those points, I wasn’t focused either.”

Tonight’s game features the Big West’s leading scorers in the 6-foot-5 Harris (23.4 points a game) and 6-5 swingman J.R. Rider of Las Vegas. Rider, a transfer from Antelope Valley College, averages 24 points a game.

Massimino calls Harris “a legitimate All-American.”

Rider is considered a shoo-in for postseason honors and Las Vegas is well on its way to another NCAA postseason tournament berth, after sitting out last year because of NCAA violations.

For Long Beach, the future is still uncertain. The real test is expected to begin tonight.