Long Beach State Takes Advantage of Anteater Drought

A week that began so well for UC Irvine, ended badly, and the downhill run picked up speed rapidly Saturday.

Long Beach State’s 71-63 victory in front of 3,093 in the Pyramid dropped Irvine out of first place in the Big West Conference’s Western Division, with a thud. A final burst by the Anteaters could massage the score, but not their egos.

The 49ers (8-10, 3-3) scored the last eight points of the first half, then went on a 19-3 run to start the second half for a 48-34 lead. So for 13 minutes 33 seconds, Irvine’s offense produced three points.

The Anteaters scored 13 points in the final minute, but nothing could smooth over that rough spot. It only led to understatements.

“You can’t go that long without scoring points,” Coach Pat Douglass said. “That mini-run came too late.”

Irvine started the week in sole possession of first place. A tough loss at Pacific Thursday hurt, but not nearly as much as being run off the court by the 49ers.

“We didn’t play together,” said forward Ben Jones, who scored 18 points. “We weren’t exactly playing as individuals. We just lost focus. We started making turnovers and we started letting little things bother us.”

Such as not scoring for nearly one quarter of the game.

“This was bad, but we just have to move on,” guard Lamarr Parker said.

That’s going to take some forgetting.

Andrew Carlson’s tip-in with 3:16 left in the first half gave Irvine a 30-21 lead. The collapse came fast. Long Beach’s D’Cean Bryant scored five points in an 8-0 run that made it 30-29 at halftime.

“I thought we’d had a pretty good run with five minutes to go in the first half,” Douglass said. “I thought we might take a 10- to 12-point lead into the half. Then our guards, who had played well, didn’t do their job.”

It only got worse in the second half. Jones sank a three-pointer for a 33-29 lead. They didn’t hit the rim with a shot, let alone score again, for the next 8:46.

Irvine missed six shots in that span, five were blocked and the sixth was an airball by Juma Jackson. The Anteaters also missed two free throws and turned the ball over four times.

“After we took that lead [in the first half], we started playing different,” Jones said. “I felt we backed down.”

Meanwhile, the 49ers were working out their offensive problems.

Long Beach State was coming off a loss to Cal State Fullerton, which had denied 49er center Andrew Betts the ball. Betts, a 7-foot senior, scored two points against the Titans.

Irvine (6-10, 3-3) attempted the same ploy, and, for a time, it worked. Betts scored the 49ers’ first four points, but had only two more the rest of the half.

He finished with 25, making nine of 16 shots.

“I knew they had seen the tape of me against Fullerton, and I thought they would play me that way,” Betts said. “Then they came out in man-to-man defense and that was great. They collapsed on me, but the big difference was they let me catch the ball.”

It also didn’t hurt that 6-7 guard Antrone Lee began exploiting a mismatch on Junior Bond, Irvine’s 5-8 point guard. The matchup had worked in the first half, as Lee went scoreless. He scored 12 points in the second half.

Lee took Bond inside for back-to-back layups to tie the score, 33-33, and start the 19-0 run.

“I was kind of mad that he had shut me down,” Lee said. “I said, ‘Coach, run some plays for me.’ ”

Said Douglass: “We had to go to a bigger lineup. But our problems tonight weren’t on defense. We struggled on offense.”

It didn’t start that way.

Irvine seemed to take control midway through the first half, going on 15-2 run to go up, 30-21. The Anteaters’ guards showed poise and made good decisions in building that lead. Jason Flowers scored eight points and Parker five, and Bond had five assists.

It went south in a hurry.

Three times in the last minutes of the half, Irvine guards tried to run pick-and-roll plays but turned it over. On the Anteaters’ last possession, Bond got caught in the air and ended up bouncing a pass off Lee’s back.