6:00am | Welcome students, its mid-term time and your test today is on the Dust Plus Word of the Week!

Activity.

Last week the 49er faithfuls (and even the 49er doubtfuls) had lots of activity to observe, including one on the national stage, the Paranormal Activity of one of the most celebrated LBSU student athletes since Misty May, the friendly ghost and Big West legend in the making, Casper Ware.

As the sporting world knows by now, college basketball has this little annual convention called the NCAA tournament.  The wrinkle is that this event pays you to come, shares for every conference member and bonus bucks for each school with an entry and each game won.

Knowledgeable fans can calculate the massive NCAA TV deal is paid out to 31 conferences and works on a six year clock.  More teams from your conference plus more rounds won equals a pretty nice war chest from the NCAA.  For the nine Big West teams, the second year of growth in conference tourney attendance was impressive and, as the ushers in the lower levels of the Honda Center eagerly giggled, the best years are coming soon when the bigger fan bases of Hawaii and San Diego State come pouring in. 

We’ll  get back to the results on the courts and fields shortly but a lot of this week will be centered on the television set in your man or woman cave, your sports, bar, or the electronics department in the mall.

Frank Burlison, an independent word-slinger for all things hoop, had an unique interest in the post season party list, especially since his new venture, Burlison on Basketball, had sixteen clients make the tourney.  He weighed in on the field, “Only four Round of 64 matchups are made up of two teams from non-BCS conferences – No. 5 New Mexico (Mountain West) and No. 12 Long Beach State (Big West) in Portland along with No. 5 Wichita State (Missouri Valley) and No. 12 VCU (Collegiate Athletic Association); No. 8 Memphis (Conference-USA) and No. 9 Saint Louis (Atlantic 10) in Columbus; and No. 6 Murray State (Ohio Valley) and No. 11 Colorado State (MWC) in Louisville.”  Frankie, who had plenty of time at the BWC tourney since the Pac 12 locals crashed and burned, went on to say “round of 64 games I’m most intrigued by: VCU-Wichita State, Saint Louis-Memphis, Long Beach State-New Mexico and Creighton-Alabama.”  He even picks the Niners to get the first win and up the cash take for the Beach and their conference mates. 

So with the short notice, a Thurs-Sat schedule vs Friday-Sun poses some problems.  Air travelers are squeezed but car and bus travelers just need to pack a trunk full of snacks along side their gold tee shirts, foam axes, along with some band and cheer team members.  More important to the outcome is the still uncertain health of the right knee of Larry Anderson.

Larry,  known to the fandom as LAX (‘cleared for take off), kept the secret all week that under the snazzy street clothes was a big old brace and under that a swollen lower extremity.  He says 80% Thursday but insiders think that it may be a lot less than that.

So what’s up with the New Mexico Lobos who went into the MW tourney as co-champions for the Mountain’s regular-season crown with the SDSU Aztecs, who lost to UNM in the title game?  The recent stars for the Beach have been lesser lights such as James Ennis, made the Big West All-Tournament team and the got nine rebound effort of Edis Dervisevic, who made his first start of the season for the 49ers.

Ware not only was the repeat Big West Player of The Year, but he was the District IX Player of the Year named by the United States Basketball Writers Association. All five of the 49er starters made the all-league team at some level. Ware, Anderson and T.J. Robinson were first team while Eugene Phelps was named second-team all-league and Ennis was an honorable mention selection.  Need more scoring, don’t over look freshmen sparkler Mike Caffey and sharp shooter Peter Papageorge

The 49ers are not a huge team and the Lobos will have some advantages inside. Ware is the shortest LBS starter at 5-foot-10 and Robinson and Dervisevic are listed a 6-8. Long Beach State and Phelps is an active 6-7 combo player.  Both coaches, old pals Steve Alford and Dan Monson, figure the game will feature speed and UCSB’s coach Bob Williams discounted complaints that the Beach was stealing signs from the Gauchos, “they are just so darn fast they get there before the guy we called the play for.”

Ware is the first-ever 49er to score 1,500 points while dishing out 500 assists during a career and has led the resurgence of Beach basketball which has a solid NCAA history, in the dance nine times: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1993, 1995 and 2007. Monson is taking his third team to the NCAA–Gonzaga to the Elite Eight in 1999 and Minnesota to the first round in 2005.

Fans of both teams are looking ahead, the No. 5 seed is paired next to the No. 4 seed and in Portland that is the Louisville Cardinals, who open with No. 13 Davidson.  The lady 49ers meanwhile had a great 2012 tourney run ruining the summer for the first and second place teams in the conference, Northridge and SLO.  All but one of the active Beach gals comes back including fiery Alex Sanchez and blossoming big girl Devin Hudson. 

Finally we wrap up the score card with a long list of competition. Baseball (5-10)
Lost vs. San Diego State 3-1, lost vs. #9 Arizona State 3-2 (12),
Won vs. #9 Arizona State 7-3, Lost vs. #9 Arizona State 6-1.
 
Softball (10-17)Won vs. Eastern Kentucky 10-7, Lost vs. Oregon State 12-2, Lost vs. UCLA 14-0, Won vs. North Carolina 6-0, Won vs. Charleston Southern 5-0
 
No. 47 Women’s Tennis (10-3, 5-0 Big West), Won vs. #55 Sacramento State, 4-3
Won vs. #63 UC Irvine, 5-2. 
 
No. 19 Women’s Water Polo (6-10) went 2-2 last week, Men’s Volleyball (10-9, 5-6 MPSF) Won vs. IPFW, 3-0, Lost vs. No. 7 Lewis, 3-1; and in Men’s Golf
at Fresno State Lexus Golf Classic- 49ers finish in sixth place of 16 teams (364-358-382–1104).
 Historic Dust
 
In 1970, Marquette was ranked eighth in the nation in the final poll, but they were placed in an unfavorable bracket in the NCAA Tournament. In protest, coach Al McGuire turned down the bid — and played in (and won) the NIT instead…LBSU spent something like $400,000 on our basketball program this year (funded by the guarantees) well above the budget effort of the other current BWC teams…The Lobos (26-9) see a bit of irony, the UNLV Rebels will open their NCAA dance in Albuquerque in on their court, The Pit…all the schools I have seen ask for some donation level for access to NCAA tickets…Lobo Club contributors at the $5,000 and above donation levels can order four (4) tickets per account…but it is only a hundred bucks for Beach boosters…The 49ers (25-8) advanced to the tournament for the ninth time in school history and the first since the 2007 season…while offense is great for highlights experts think that defense should be the name of the game Thursday. The 49ers led the Big West limiting their opponents to just 63.6 points per game, but the Lobos were even better hamstring opposing offenses to just 59.1 points per game. LBSU held opponents to 41.9 percent shooting, while UNM limited opponents to 38 percent…no exact figure for the LB share from this tourney, it depends on how many games are won, but remember that the late football coach George Allen had an unlimited budget and over spent it…so when the Vanderbilt –Harvard match up, Good game on basketball court, or in Scrabble or Jeopardy.
 
So what advice would our home grown sports psychology guy Don Peters say to the baseball and softball teams that are struggling these days, “Yeah, I would impress upon both those teams that the game(s) they are about to play is the same game they’ve been playing since they were about 5 years old – the only thing different is what folks will do with the results – the game is the same, they’re not gonna be asked to do anything different, just play their ass off – that’s the only thing they can control, how hard they play, can’t control the outcome, so just play!”