‘Eaters trounced by 49ers
LONG BEACH — The tributes to the Long Beach State men’s basketball seniors rolled on for several minutes after the Big West Conference home game Wednesday against visiting UC Irvine.
The postgame senior night ceremony at Walter Pyramid, in fact, took longer than it did to decide the outcome of a 77-50 thrashing that was yet another cherry on top of a satisfyingly successful season for the host 49ers.
Those 49ers, who had already clinched the Big West regular-season title, improved to 22-7, 15-0 in conference. It was the 22nd consecutive regular-season conference game won by Long Beach, which extended its home winning streak to 23.
The four Long Beach State senior starters — Casper Ware, T.J. Robinson, Larry Anderson and Eugene Phelps — all got their curtain calls in front of a crowd of 3,785. In addition, senior reserves Edis Dervisevic and Sean Starkey had career-high scoring outputs of 10 and eight points, respectively.
Even injured senior guard Corey Jackson, who had a boot on his left foot, got into the game, waving his arms to incite a crowd that had only ceremonial cheers left.
UCI (11-18, 6-9) fell out of a three-way tie for fourth heading into its regular-season finale on Saturday at Big West rival UC Riverside. A win for the Anteaters would give them no worse than the No. 6 seed in the conference tournament that begins March 8 at Honda Center.
Winning Saturday proved to be a fitting postgame topic on which to focus for UCI Coach Russell Turner after the 49ers scored 30 first-half points in the paint, led, 38-20, at intermission, pushed the advantage to 31 and used the second half as an encore for their heralded senior class.
“Every guy on our team can be disappointed in the way we played tonight,” said Turner, whose team played without freshman Will Davis, who was not in uniform and had a boot on his right foot after sustaining an unspecified injury in Saturday’s overtime win over Cal State Northridge.
“[Long Beach] poured it on us tonight, in a real good college basketball environment for them. I don’t think we put up much fight. I’m disappointed in that.”
Turner said he had no problem with the extended celebration enjoyed by the winners.
“These guys deserve to have a night like this,” Turner said of the Long Beach seniors, particularly the starters. “These guys have been outstanding for their careers. They’ve been good guys, good players, and they dominated this league this year. It’s a tough draw to have this game as an opponent. What I hoped was that we can learn from this experience, and deliver a [butt]-kicking like this one day, rather than taking it.”
Freshman Mike Best had 11 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes off the bench to lead the ‘Eaters, for whom the starters totaled 31 points.
UCI shot 31.7% from the field and had 17 turnovers, nearly double the 49ers’ nine.
Ware, last year’s conference player of the year, had 11 of his 16 points after halftime to lead the winners. Robinson had 10 points and 11 rebounds for his 53rd career double-double.
Twitter: @BarryFaulkner5
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Big West Conference
Long Beach State 77, UC Irvine 50
UCI – Wilder 9, Folker 6, McNealy 8, Flowers 6, Starring 2, Best 11, Souza 5, Woods 3.
3-pt. goals – Wilder 2, Flowers 1, McNealy 1, Souza 1, Woods 1.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
LBSU – Phelps 11, Robinson 10, Ware 16, Ennis 9, Anderson 5, Dervisevic 10, Starkey 8, Shepherd 4, Caffey 2, Pappageorge 2.
3-pt. goals – Ware 4, Ennis 2.
Fouled out – None.
Technicals – None.
Halftime – 38-20, LBSU.