Long Beach State Gets a Big Jump on Healthy Titans

Last week at Cal State Fullerton, Josh King’s cheeks were the size of canned hams, Greg Vernon was so ill he looked as if someone forced him to watch 10 hours of the Lorena Bobbitt trial and David Frigout’s left foot felt as if it was going to split in half.

Ah, the good old days.

The Titans, playing with a complete roster for the first time in nine days, still lost to Long Beach State, 91-69, on Saturday night in front of 1,479 at Long Beach.

Coming off of a 66-57 victory Thursday at UC Santa Barbara, Fullerton (4-13, 2-7) was encouraged by King’s return (he missed the UCSB game because of oral surgery for impacted wisdom teeth), Vernon’s regained strength (from the flu) and Frigout’s fortitude (he’s forced to play the rest of the season with a stress fracture).

The good vibes lasted about as long as it took to break a sweat after tip-off.

Fullerton got behind quickly, 30-13, before its driver was finished gassing up the bus.

“We were thoroughly outplayed at both ends of the court,” Fullerton Coach Brad Holland said. “They played very physical and aggressive and we didn’t respond to that. We took a lot of bad shots and they forced us out of what we wanted to do offensively.”

Long Beach State (10-5, 5-3), which has won eight of its past 10 games, made 59% of its first-half field goals and played a suffocating zone defense.

“That’s as good offensively as we’ve been in the second half,” said 49er Coach Seth Greenberg, whose team shot 79% from the floor in the final 20 minutes and 69% for the game. “We took something like 60 three-pointers in the last two games. We had a soul-searching meeting to decide how to win basketball games. You win basketball games with high percentage shots and by shooting threes inside-out.”

Mike Atkinson scored a game-high 24 for Long Beach State. Winston Peterson had 17 for Fullerton and Fred Amos had a career-high 14.

Add a Big West officiating crew that couldn’t find its head with both hands and it was a long night for everyone concerned.

Although the Titans shot only 24% from the floor in the first half and played defense as if it were something they could do while standing still, they still had a better 20 minutes than the officials, who turned the game into a fiasco.

Dick Cartmell, Bill Kennedy and Ronnie Hernandez couldn’t go more than two possessions without blowing their whistles and, when they did, they were often unsure of what to do.

Three times they made technical errors:

--The first came after Fullerton had compiled its ninth team foul, when the 49ers should have been in a one-and-one situation. The officials mistakenly gave the 49ers two shots and didn’t realize their error until after the first shot was missed and the ball hit the floor. Faced with a dead ball, they awarded it out of bounds to Fullerton.

--The second came when Vernon was fouled on a three-point attempt with five seconds left before halftime. Vernon was awarded only two free throws--at first. After he made the second one to make it 42-27, Long Beach State advanced the ball to the other side of the court before the officials heard Holland’s plea, blew the play dead, and agreed they should have given Vernon a third free-throw attempt.

--The third came immediately thereafter when, after Vernon missed that third attempt, Long Beach’s Atkinson was fouled on a three-point attempt at the buzzer. Again, the officials mistakenly awarded him two free throws until 49er Coach Seth Greenberg convinced them to look at the television replay on the sideline. Of course, Greenberg was correct and the officials changed their minds and gave Atkinson a third attempt.

By the time Atkinson swished it, Holland and his team were in the locker room for the intermission. It was hard enough to watch already.

By then, the Titans had managed to match the officials mistake for mistake. Facing a highly effective 49er zone defense, Fullerton made only six of 25 first-half field goals and committed 10 turnovers.

Part of the problem was that the Titan offense didn’t work when Peterson wasn’t in the middle of it. Peterson made four of five field-goal attempts--mostly from the lane--to finish the half with 13 points. No other Titan had more than six.