Long Beach Finds the Zone, Beats First-Place Utah State : Basketball: Greenberg’s defensive strategy works in 62-50 victory over Aggies. McNaull scores season-high 24 points.

Long Beach State Coach Seth Greenberg is set in his basketball ways, which explains why the 49ers waited eagerly for the punchline Saturday night when Greenberg announced they would play zone defense--and lots of it--in a key Big West Conference game against Utah State.

Greenberg abhors any type zone and teaches the concept about as much as he encourages the 49ers to commit turnovers. The joke, however, was on Utah State.

The 49ers’ 2-3 zone at times befuddled the first-place Aggies, helping Long Beach to a 62-50 victory in front of 4,483 at the Pyramid.

“I told the guys before the game we were going to give the zone a try and they didn’t believe me,” Greenberg said. “We don’t practice zone a lot, but we put in a few wrinkles for some of the lineups they play.”

Coach Larry Eustachy said the Aggies were prepared to face a zone. Admittedly, though, their play didn’t indicate such.

“That’s the best I’ve seen Long Beach,” he said. “I was really impressed with them.

“We knew they were going to zone us, we just didn’t execute.”

In any event, the 49ers endorsed the strategy.

“Coach finally played zone,” said 49er forward Terrance O’Kelley, who had 12 points and six rebounds. “Coach never has us play it, but he didn’t think they had too many great shooters.”

Also, the other way didn’t work too well last time.

Greenberg pretty much stuck to his beloved man-to-man defense against Utah State on Jan. 19 in Logan, Utah. And the 49ers were blown away, 87-67.

Long Beach played its worst in that game, Greenberg said. But in the rematch, the 49ers impressed their coach.

“I’m real proud of them,” Greenberg said. “That was as solid as we’ve played for one 40-minute stretch this season.”

Center Joe McNaull scored a season-high 24 points and had six rebounds as the 49ers (11-6, 7-3 in the Big West) remained tied with New Mexico State for second place. Utah State (14-4, 8-2) tied the score at 46-46 on a three-point shot by guard Corwin Woodard, who scored a team-high 18 points, with 8:49 to play.

But then McNaull, as he has often recently, took over.

“It doesn’t matter what anyone does to Joe now,” guard Tye Mays said. “Teams know who he is but they don’t know how to stop him.”

McNaull scored six points during Long Beach’s 11-0 run to take control of the game. Moreover, McNaull dominated his more-celebrated counterpart, Aggie center Eric Franson.

Franson entered the game with conference-leading averages of 20.3 points and 10.8 rebounds. He had only 13 points (on five-of-12 shooting) and seven rebounds against McNaull.

“McNaull is playing like a first round NBA pick,” Eustachy said.

McNaull made 11 of 15 shots--often shooting right in Franson’s face. He is the main reason Long Beach has won four consecutive games for the first time this season.

“Joe was magnificent again,” Greenberg said. “And we did a good job getting him the ball.”

Guard Rasul Salahuddin played well with 12 points and seven assists. His typically strong defense helped the 49ers limit Utah State to 43.9% shooting from the field; Long Beach shot 47.1%.

Long Beach played some of its best basketball of the season during the game’s first 15 minutes and led, 28-26, at halftime. However, the 49ers were ahead, 24-15, with only 5:31 to go in the half when McNaull made a turnaround jumper.

Actually, the 49ers were lucky to have the halftime lead. The Aggies made 47.6% of their field-goal attempts and Long Beach connected on only 40%. Utah State also outrebounded Long Beach to that point, 19-10.