Long Beach Takes Its Time Beating Up UCI

These are clearly not the best of times to be a UC Irvine Anteater, and a national TV audience found out exactly why Thursday night.

Repeatedly.

Long Beach State played the worst game of its recent solid stretch but still had more than enough to add to Irvine’s problems--and list of losses--with an 89-63 victory in front of 3,660 at the Pyramid.

“They seemed to get a little tired in the second half and that led to them turning the ball over,” Long Beach Coach Wayne Morgan said. “It’s tough when you’re playing three freshmen. They’re just young and inexperienced.”

Guard Brandon Titus scored a game-high 22 points for Long Beach, which improved to 11-12 and 7-6 in the Western Division. Long Beach is alone in second place in the division.

Irvine (1-21, 1-12) has lost eight straight and is in last in the division. The loss ended Irvine chances of qualifying for the Big West tournament. Guard Lamarr Parker led Irvine with 16 points and forward Brian Johnson had 14.

After helping Irvine stay in the game with its poor first-half shooting, Long Beach got serious, got going and got out of this one with its fourth consecutive victory. Long Beach simply let things run their natural course in the second half and Irvine ran into its season-long problem: Too little talent all around.

Long Beach took a 52-49 lead on a three-point play by guard James Cotton with 13:01 to play and sped away from there. Cotton rebounded from a first-half shooting slump to score 16 of his 21 points in the second half.

“[Irvine] did a good job on James,” Morgan said, “but anyone who plays to the level and the ability of James Cotton is not going to be shut down over 40 minutes.”

Much of the game’s final 10 minutes will likely show up in the 49ers’ season highlight tape: Solid passing, smooth shooting and dunks. At one point in the second half, Long Beach went on a 37-7 run.

Until then, the ESPN2 audience--assuming, of course, anyone was watching--saw Long Beach sweat. Big time.

A three-pointer by Jackson and a layup by Johnson enabled Irvine to match its biggest lead of the game, 42-37, with 18:24 to go. Morgan called a timeout and Long Beach regrouped, outscoring Irvine, 10-2, to take a 47-44 lead with 15:21 remaining.

Titus enabled Long Beach to enter halftime without the burden of trailing to one of America’s worst teams. But only barely.

He made a jumper with three seconds left in the half to put Long Beach ahead, 37-36. Long Beach spend most of the first half trying to fight off--and catch up to--Irvine.

Led by Titus, Long Beach jumped out to a 10-2 lead. Titus scored seven points during the game-opening run and Irvine appeared generally hapless at the start, throwing the ball out of bounds, missing uncontested dunks, shooting airballs, etc.

But Long Beach couldn’t come through with a knockout punch, so back came Irvine with a 9-1 run of its own to tie the score, 11-11. Long Beach’s biggest lead of the half, 24-16, came with 7:31 remaining on a free throw by Johnson.

Titus was the 49ers’ lone effective first-half point producer. Titus had 15 points at the break, but his teammates’ lack of help helped the Anteaters to stay very much in the game.

Led by Parker, Irvine gave Long Beach everything it could handle. Parker, who scored 12 points in the half, put Irvine ahead, 36-31, with 1:43 to play by scoring five straight points on a three-pointer and two free throws. Irvine has not led by more that eight points in a game this season.

But Titus, again, helped Long Beach relax a little. Long Beach outscored Irvine, 6-2, the rest of the way as Titus made two long jumpers.

Cotton missed six of his seven first-half field-goal attempts as Long Beach shot 38.7% from the field. Irvine wasn’t much better, making 41.2% of its attempts and committing 11 turnovers.