McNaull Leads 49ers to Victory

Odds are extremely good that Long Beach State will eventually lose another basketball game, but its Big West Conference opponents aren’t so sure--and with good reason.

Long Beach has overpowered conference foes recently and its winning streak reached seven games with a 75-63 victory over UC Santa Barbara in front of 3,212 Wednesday night at the Thunderdome.

With their first victory at the Thunderdome since the 1987-88 season, the 49ers tied Utah State for first place. As usual, center Joe McNaull put the power in the attack for Long Beach (14-6, 10-3 in conference).

McNaull scored his career high at Long Beach with 28 points on 12-of-14 shooting. He also had nine rebounds.

“Everybody got me the ball,” McNaull said. “They all looked for me and threw it to me.”

McNaull scored 16 first-half points as Long Beach took a 38-33 halftime lead. He scored six points during a 15-4 second-half run that helped push a one-point 49er lead to a 60-48 advantage with 5 minutes 3 seconds to play. “We did a good job getting the ball into Joe’s hands,” Coach Seth Greenberg said. “Obviously, when you get the ball into Joe’s hands good things happen.”

As has been the case throughout the streak, the 49ers took big leads after long stretches of intelligent play.

But they shouldn’t get too giddy, because they had equal stretches of poor play.

The final outcome is what counts most, and senior point guard Tye Mays has looked forward to winning here for a long time.

“I feel great, especially for the seniors,” Mays said. “To finally get a win here is great. Now we just have to keep this up.”

The 49ers quickly trailed, 16-8, before settling down, finding McNaull and playing defense. Long Beach held Santa Barbara to one field goal for an 11-minute stretch in the first half. The swarming defense, in addition to the Gauchos’ poor shooting, led to a 23-5 run that gave Long Beach a 31-21 lead with 3:58 left in the half.

“After the first four minutes,” Greenberg said, “I thought we defended great.”

But Long Beach, which shot 50% and limited the Gauchos to 36.8%, suffered a brief second-half defensive lapse that allowed Santa Barbara to rally.

Two consecutive baskets by forward Mark Flick helped the Gauchos (11-10, 6-7) cut the 49ers’ lead to 45-44 with 12:03 to go in the game. But guard Eric Brown made a three-point basket on Long Beach’s next possession, triggering the 49ers’ game-breaking run.