Betts and Long Beach Are Battered, Beaten

Andrew Betts went 12 rounds with the Wyoming tag team of Jeff Allen, Ugo Udezue, Jeron Roberts and Justin French and emerged bowed and beaten.

And bloody angry after Long Beach State’s 55-43 loss to the Cowboys before 5,054 in the Arena-Auditorium at Laramie on Saturday night.

Betts, the 49ers’ 7-foot-1 center from England, was the focal point of the Long Beach (5-7) offense in scoring 12 points and pulling down eight rebounds over smaller competition.

He was the only offense for the 49ers for much of the second half, and that was the rub.

“We don’t score a basket for 10 minutes,” said Long Beach Coach Wayne Morgan, “and when you don’t score a basket for 10 minutes, you aren’t going to win in Division I.”

The 49ers didn’t.

They held a 24-20 halftime lead, stretched it to 28-23 on two second-half free throws by Betts and a slam dunk by D’Cean Bryant on a feed from Betts.

Betts added a 10-footer with 11:12 to play to make it 30-25, the highwater mark for Long Beach.

His layup gave the 49ers a 32-30 lead. After that, it was all Wyoming (10-2).

Roberts, from Covina, hit a jump shot, then a driving layup, countered only by Betts’ free throw, to give the Cowboys a 34-33 lead.

The run was 16-3, with Roberts scoring seven of his game-high 18 points.

Betts’ free throws accounted for all three Long Beach points.

When the 49ers weren’t turning over the ball or trying bad shots, they were passing in to Betts, who was being triple-teamed and getting hammered.

“I was getting punched,” he said. “They were sending guys at me with forearms, things like that, and I lost my composure.”

As did Long Beach State, which turned the ball over 23 times, 12 of those in the second half of its final nonconference game. The 49ers open Big West play Thursday at Nevada.

The run was ended by the first non-Betts related second half points for Long Beach State, two free throws by Grant Stone.

“We had too many turnovers, bad decisions, poor passes in the second half,” Morgan said.