It’s Not Pretty, but Long Beach Will Take Victory Over Nevada : Basketball: 49ers win, 67-64, despite shooting 31% in first half. McNaull has game-high 19 points.

An artistic hoops display it wasn’t. OK, what’s that word, yeah, abomination , now that fits.

Even so, Long Beach State is no position to thumb its nose at a 67-64 Big West Conference victory over Nevada in front of 3,629 Thursday night at the Pyramid.

“This game probably set basketball back a long way,” 49er Coach Seth Greenberg said. “But it was a win and a win we needed.”

Correct on both counts.

The 49ers (10-6, 6-3 in conference) move into a second-place tie with New Mexico State. They did so despite shooting only 37% from the field, committing 23 mostly silly turnovers and almost handing the game to the Wolf Pack in the closing seconds after taking a nine-point lead with under two minutes to play.

“Nevada is a good team and they played us tough,” point guard Tye Mays said. “This was a conference win, so I don’t care how it looks as long as we win.”

Nevada (10-8, 6-4) didn’t exactly excite the crowd too much either. The Wolf Pack shot only 39% in losing to Long Beach for the second time this season.

Some of the 49ers, though, did perform above their teammates’ level.

Center Joe McNaull continued his strong play, scoring a game-high 19 points with eight rebounds. Forward Terrance O’Kelley had 13 points and equaled his career high with 14 rebounds. Reserve guard Eric Brown scored a career-high 16 points, making four of nine three-point attempts.

Still, none of the 49ers rushed home to watch the game tape.

“It was sloppy--real sloppy,” Long Beach forward Juaquin Hawkins said. “I just wanted us to hit some shots, get the win and get it over.”

Sounds easier than it was.

Two free throws by Mays gave Long Beach its biggest lead of the game, 64-55, with 1:23 remaining. Then the 49ers seemingly forgot the Wolf Pack was still allowed to score.

Guard Brian Green’s second consecutive three-point basket capped a 9-2 run for Nevada and cut the 49ers’ lead to 66-64 with 20 seconds left. No sweat, it seemed, for Long Beach, because Green fouled swingman Jamie Davis and Davis went to the free-throw line for two shots.

He missed both.

However, swingman Damien Edwards then missed a three-point shot that would have given Nevada the lead. Green fouled Davis while going for the rebound, sending Davis to the line for another eventful trip with 1.8 seconds left.

A 67% free-throw shooter, Davis made the first and missed the second. Nevada point guard Eathan O’Bryant’s desperation three-point try from about 70 feet away grazed the left side of the rim as time expired.

And to think what might have happened had Wolf Pack center Daniel Watts and forward Faron Hand not fouled out. Watts fouled out with 8:30 to play and Hand, who led Nevada with 14 points, was gone about a minute later.

“It was a weird game,” said O’Bryant, who had 11 points and four assists. “Even when (the game) slipped away from us, we were never completely out of it.”

The same can be said for the Wolf Pack’s opponent.

Long Beach shot 31% in the first half and trailed at halftime, 30-24. The 49ers made only nine of 29 field-goal attempts.

But it should have been much worse for Long Beach. The 49ers took a 16-10 lead on a three-point shot by Brown with 11:12 to go before halftime--and didn’t score for about five minutes.

“We were getting good shots,” Mays said, “we just weren’t hitting them.”

In this game, that figured.