December 9, 1998
Northwestern routs disjointed 49ers
Basketball: Smalls fails to show - and so does L.B. State offense.
By GORDON VERRELL
Staff writer Long Beach Press Telegram
EVANSTON, Ill. - Another day, another controversy, another blowout loss.
Not what the Long Beach State men's basketball team had in mind for its final tuneup before the start of Big West Conference play in another week. But that's life in the demanding world of Division I college basketball.
Especially when you shoot a paltry 25 1/2 percent and your No. 1 rebounder doesn't bother to show up.
The 49ers absorbed a 67-47 drubbing Sunday at Northwestern, their fourth loss in a row, to fall to 3-7. Coach Wayne Morgan insisted that it had a whole lot more to do with bum shooting - the 49ers' poorest-shooting game in at least two seasons - than anything Northwestern did defensively or the fact Richie Smalls remained AWOL.
"We missed a lot of easy shots . . . seven or eight layups," Morgan said. "The outcome cannot be attributed to Richie's absence."
Probably not. But it sure didn't help not having a 6-foot-8 body around, especially the way the 49ers tried to gang up on Northwestern's 6-11 Evan Esch- meyer, a bona fide preseason All-American. A lot of good it did them; Eschmeyer, with 16 points, produced his 50th consecutive double-figure-scoring game, and three 49ers fouled out trying to slow him.
Forward Grant Stone, one of those who ended the game sitting on the bench, admitted the Smalls issue was something of a distraction, saying: "It would have been nice to have another guy. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten so deep into foul trouble."
Morgan declined to talk much about it at all, saying: "I'll deal with Richie when I see him. A distraction? Yeah, it's a distraction. But I don't want to talk about it. It's not fair to the kids who are here."
Smalls, who, until Sunday, had been the only 49er to start every game, was given permission to go home to New York following last week's exhibition game. He was expected to return to Long Beach on Christmas Eve. He didn't.
Morgan said he's not pushing the panic button nor sending out an all-points bulletin . . . yet.
"In the 12 years I was (an assistant) at Syracuse, we always let the kids go home a few days for Christmas," he said. "Not once did everybody get back at the time they said they would. There were always missed flights or bad weather or something."
The weather here was cold enough outside Welsh-Ryan Arena but, for the 49ers, a lot colder inside.
They made just 14 of 55 field-goal tries (25.5 percent), and only 3 of 19 3-point attempts (16 percent). They shot a mere 28 percent in the first half, even worse in the second half: 23 percent.
Northwestern coach Kevin O'Neill, who resurrected the basketball programs at Marquette and Tennessee before trying his hand here, has his Wildcats at 7-2 with a seven-game winning streak at home. O'Neill praised his team's defense after Sunday's victory.
"Over 40 minutes, that's as good a defense as we can play," he said.
Morgan said that was rubbish, that it was bad offense on the 49ers' part.
"I told our kids at halftime (when Northwestern led by 12) that if we have five minutes of good offense, we're back in the game," Morgan said afterward.
Apparently, someone didn't listen. In less than four minutes of the second half, Northwestern led by 18. The closest the 49ers got the rest of the way was 12.
Junior point guard Charles O'Neal made his long-awaited 49er debut. He didn't do it in private, either. More than two dozen friends and family made the trip from Detroit.
"It felt good playing again," said O'Neal, who hadn't played competitively for about a year and a half, since he was at Florida Community College. "It felt a little odd. . . . I'm still trying to get my rhythm back."
O'Neal, Morgan said, "did some good things. I think he was a little frustrated at times."
O'Neal didn't start but he got in for 22 minutes. He scored six points on 3-for-7 shooting, had an assist, two steals and no turnovers.
In fact, the 49ers turned the ball over just 10 times, a season low. But they were whipped on the boards, 40-34, with Eschmeyer gathering 13 rebounds.