February 12, 1999
Gauchos pummel 49ers
Basketball: L.B. State goes meekly, falls to third place in Big West.
By Gordon Verrell
Associated Press
GOLETA - No last-second dramatics this time around. No dramatics, period, for Long Beach State's basketball team.
This time, UC Santa Barbara stormed in front of the 49ers and stayed there, rolling to an 87-77 victory Thursday night before a raucous crowd of 3,013 at the Thunderdome.
The 49ers, who tripped UCSB last week at the Pyramid on Charles O'Neal's buzzer-beating 3-pointer, had designs on jumping into first place in the Big West Conference Western Division. Instead, they dropped to third, 1 1/2 games behind first-place Santa Barbara and a half-game back of Pacific.
"We've been in this position plenty of times," said guard Ramel "Rock" Lloyd, touching on the 49ers' roller-coaster of a season that never quite seems to make it to the top. "We always seem to be digging a hole for ourselves ."
Thursday night, the 49ers (7-5 in the Big West, 10-12 overall) didn't dig themselves one as much as UCSB (8-3, 10-11) put them in one.
The Gauchos opened an 11-point lead 9 1/2 minutes into the first half, led by 12 at halftime and by as many as 18 just 5 1/2 minutes into the second half.
Senior forward Josh Merrill peppered the 49ers from just about every angle, knocking down 3- pointers from the corner, from the top of the key, driving the lane, making his free throws, repeatedly riddling what passed for Long Beach State's defense in producing a career-high 31 points on 11 of 17 shooting, plus six-for-six from the free-throw line.
"He had a very good night, a career night," said 49er coach Wayne Morgan, who threw just about everybody he had on the bench at Merrill, all to no avail.
Merrill also grabbed seven of UCSB's 35 rebounds. That's 10 more than the 49ers managed, bringing up another nagging problem: The 49ers have outrebounded their opponent just once in the last seven games despite, in many cases, going in with a taller lineup. Thursday night, for example. UCSB started just one player taller than 6-7 (Merrill). Long Beach started two, Richie Smalls and Mate Milisa.
Yet the 49ers had only one - one - offensive rebound in the first half.
"We talk about it, we work on it," Morgan said. "We work 20 different rebounding drills every day in practice. (But) when the ball is on the glass, they've got to go up and get it, I can't do it."
Despite their rebounding woes, the 49ers generally play decently on defense. They didn't Thursday night. UCSB shot 55 percent and finished with its second-highest point total of the season in winning for the sixth time in its last seven home games.
"That's a lot of points for us," Morgan said of the 49ers' 77, which matched their third-highest all season. "We scored enough points. But 87 is too much to give up."
Three Gauchos reached double figures. B.J. Bunton had 23, Derrick 13 and Erick Ashe 10 to go along with Merrill's 31, which exceeded his previous career-best, established last Saturday night at Pacific, by 10.
Lloyd had 24 to lead the 49ers, Milisa 18 and O'Neal 16.