Long Beach’s 6’3″ Center Devin Hudson works inside against Santa Clara. Photo courtesy of Robert Burge.

As tempting as it is to crank out one of those “What do coaches want for Christmas” columns, the moms and dads of Beach basketball are far too serious these days to play that game so we will just quickly unload our sleigh full of wit and wisdom.

Mrs. Jody Wynn is puzzled by her basketball bunch, winners over a couple of name programs from her big sisters in the PAC 12 (Arizona and Washington) but losers to her little sisters in the West Coast Conference.

Last weekend LBSU rebounded well enough but couldn’t seem to hit the ocean from a boat in their 67-49 defeat to San Diego down at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. The Beach got the 35-to-34 edge in rebounding, but only shot 37.3 percent from the field and 17.6 percent from 3-point range, and made matters worse with 24 turnovers.

USD crowded the normally proficient Alex Sanchez, allowing sophomore Bianka Balthazar to be the lone 49er in double figures with 12 points. Lauren Spargo added seven points, while sophomore Devin Hudson grabbed a team-best five rebounds. It got bad for a while when USD would go up by as many as 28 before the 49ers went on a 10-0 run for the final 67-49 margin.

Next up for the ladies of Long Beach State is this weekend’s third annual Beach Classic, on December 20 and 21. The 49ers open the tournament with a 5PM game against Canisius College on Friday night.

The lads of Mr. Dan Monson shook off the final exam rust and went to work in the second half using their poster boys senior James Ennis and sophomore Mike Caffey in a win over D-2 BYU-Hawaii 82-65. Ennis led the 49ers in scoring with 29 points and 15 rebounds, both career highs and leading the team, while Caffey scored 21 points and grabbed 11 boards, also a pair of career highs for the sophomore. Caffey also added a career-high six steals, finishing with a career high in three different categories.

Now the coaching staff is using split screens to view game tape on mighty UCLA who they play on Tuesday in the remodeled Pauley Pavilion and the Fall grade rosters for their three highly anticipated transfers—Keala King (Arizona State), Tony Freeman, (DePaul) and Edgar Garibay (LMU). As a former prof (fortunately all in grad-school courses), I know everybody wants grades turned in ASAP. If they are supposedly turned in by Tuesday, the lads can likely get cleared and played. Likely I said, not for sure.

The game is of course in Los Angeles on Tuesday at UCLA at 8PM in Pauley Pavilion. The PAC 12 network or your favorite sports bar will have the game and then Long Beach State returns to the Pyramid a week from Saturday, December 29, to host Pacific in the first game of Big West play. That game is at home so no cheating, but you can record it on Fox Sports.

Long Beach’s pesky defender Chantel Dooley (31) pressures Santa Clara. Photo courtesy of Robert Burge.

UN-RAPPED DUST—Where are theys…former BWC coach and UCR AD Stan Morrison now has a new address as the AD of tiny La Sierra college…ex-Niner football assistant Mike Sanford is now the head man at Indiana State. Mike is well traveled—United States Military Academy, Virginia Military Institute, Long Beach State, Purdue, USC, Notre Dame, the San Diego Chargers and Stanford…former track star (think hammer throw) Stephanie Sampson no longer at UCLA and some fancy LA PR firm but back at the Beach taking on the Sports Information Directorship left open when Todd Mikes went to Oregon…Ironically Steph was a lowly intern in the SID dept. when her assignment was to create a media guide for track…ageless scribe Gordie Verrell reported that she put herself on the cover since she had just got the record in her event…she stuck around an graduated from the LBSU sports management masters program before her duties in Westwood and later as Senior Account Executive at PCG Campbell.

The Arizona Diamondbacks traded Bryan Shaw to the Cleveland Indians along with top pitching prospect and former UCLA Bruin, Trevor Bauer…it was a nine-player deal among three teams. The Indians also acquired Drew Stubbs from Cincinnati.
We got fussed at for not enough volleyball news so this is catch up. We start with Sophomore middle blocker Chisom Okpala who was selected as an Honorable Mention All-American by the American Volleyball Coaches Association after a breakout year. Okpala ranked in the Top 10 in the Big West in four categories, and led the 49ers in both hitting percentage and blocking in 2012. Her 224 kills in Big West play led Long Beach State, and Okpala was named both a first-team All-Big West and a first-team All-West Region selection. She is the 24th 49er in school history to receive All-American honors, and is slated to return in 2013 along with veteran middle Haleigh Hampton, who missed the 2012 campaign due to injury after earning All-America honors in 2011. A bunch of other Beachers also got regional honors.

Finally we get to the gentlemen of the Long Beach State men’s volleyball team who were picked to finish sixth out of 13 teams in the 2013 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Preseason Coaches’ Poll. The 49ers received 85 points to finish just ahead of reigning MPSF regular season champion and NCAA finalist USC (83 points). Defending national champion UC Irvine was tabbed as the preseason favorite as it collected 11 first-place votes and 143 total points. BYU came in second with the remaining two first-place nods and 134 points. The black and gold get their head coach Alan Knipe back from his Olympic duties along with nine letter winners and three starters from last year’s 15-15 squad. LB will be better this year.—DR DAN