Long Beach Bemoans Early End to Season

Long Beach State is staying home.

Long Beach, winner of the Big West Conference regular-season title, was not chosen Sunday to be part of the National Invitation Tournament. Long Beach officials, here four days for the Big West tournament, left Reno believing they would be part of the NIT. But their optimism quickly became disappointment.

“Winning the league championship obviously doesn’t mean very much,” 49er Coach Seth Greenberg said. “The NIT has been very good to us, and somebody has to be left out any time you’re selecting a field, but we’re very disappointed.

“Our league was down this year. We only got one team in postseason play, so we’re just going to have to deal with it and get better.”

Long Beach (17-11) was seeded first in the Big West tournament, but lost Saturday in the semifinals to fourth-seeded Utah State. San Jose State defeated Utah State in the title game Sunday and earned the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament berth.

The 49ers, the defending tournament champions, won their first regular-season championship since the 1976-77 season. It was their first outright title since 1974-75.

Long Beach had hoped to play at Fresno State in the opening round of the NIT. Bulldog Coach Jerry Tarkanian, whose infamous battles with NCAA investigators began at Long Beach, coached the 49ers from 1968-73 and is the 49ers’ all-time winningest coach with a record of 121-20.

“We felt we had better than a 50-50 chance,” said Bill Shumard, recently named interim athletic director. “We felt Long Beach and Fresno would be an attractive matchup, especially because of the history between the schools and the personalities involved.”

Fresno State, however, was among the 32 teams receiving NIT berths after falling short of the NCAA tournament when they lost in triple overtime to New Mexico in the Western Athletic Conference tournament. The Bulldogs (20-10) will be at home to Miami of Ohio (21-7) when the tournament begins Wednesday night.

Also chosen was Davidson, the NIT team with the most victories this season at 25-4. The Wildcats play at South Carolina (17-11) on Wednesday. The College of Charleston (24-3) visits Tennessee, at 14-14 one of two .500 teams in the field.

The other break-even team, Michigan State (15-15), is at home against Washington (16-11) on opening night. Washington State (16-11) was also invited.