Greg Plater and Brandon Nevens receive framed jerseys and plenty of applause after a Senior Night victory.

The Santa Barbara Gauchos have been the riddle of the Big West basketball season this year. How do the defending conference champions, returning almost all players including the reigning Player of the Year, fall into a fight for fifth place heading into the conference tournament?

Statistics don’t immediately tell the story, either. Santa Barbara (14-13, 7-8) is very good, or at least above average, in nearly every category from points per game to defensive field goal percentage. Assists are high, turnovers are low. Yet here they stood, bringing a 7-7 conference record into Long Beach (19-10, 13-2) on Saturday night.

They are the A-Rod of Big West basketball.

Look closer, and the Gauchos do have blatant faults. Their only clear below-average statistical category is rebounding, and any semblance of a competent point guard would do this team wonders. Individually, these weaknesses are not things that should torpedo the season of an otherwise good team. Together, they’re a lot to overcome.

Long Beach State exploited these weaknesses and more in a Senior Night victory on Saturday, their last home game this season and a true team effort. The 49ers were ignited with scoring from their backcourt but anchored by exceptional defense and rebounding from their post players. Junior point guard Casper Ware paced Long Beach with 26 points on 4-9 three-point shooting and 12-14 from the free-throw line, while junior forward T.J. Robinson notched 19 points and 19 rebounds in a vintage performance.

“I thought T.J. had great activity today, he was guarding on the perimeter and rebounding inside,” said Long Beach head coach Dan Monson. “That’s a good combination for a 6’7″ kid like him.”

It was a return to dominant form for Robinson, in a season where opponents have often focused their defense on him with consistent double-teams. As the year went on, defenders have been forced to shift their attention to likely Player of the Year Ware, multi-dimensional junior Larry Anderson and sharpshooting senior Greg Plater. It was just too much for Santa Barbara to handle defensively, and Robinson had a field day.

“He’s seeing more space and that’s been helping him a lot,” said Monson. “Early in the season, coming off the year he had last year, he drew a lot of attention and he drew crowds. Those crowds are going away a little bit.”

Robinson was also instrumental in holding the Gauchos’ most dangerous players under control. Santa Barbara boasts two of the most lethal scorers in the conference in junior swingmen Orlando Johnson and James Nunnally, and the 49ers threw varying defenders at them over the course of the game. It fell to Anderson and forward Eugene Phelps, mostly, but Long Beach switched on screens whenever possible and that often left Ware or Robinson guarding them one-on-one.

For most teams, sending everyone from point guards to power forwards at the opponents’ best players would be disaster. Not the case in the Walter Pyramid on Saturday night.

The result? Nunnally was held to 5 points on 2-7 shooting. Johnson, clearly the team’s best player, was slightly more successful with 18 points on 7-18 shooting but fouled out of the game with 4:26 remaining.

That left the door wide open for Long Beach State, already in the midst of a 9-0 run. They would rattle off eleven more consecutive points to take a 22-point lead at 71-49 that sent a clear statement to the rest of the Big West Conference and anyone else paying attention. Even having already clinched the conference title, the 49ers mean business.

At right: Tristan Wilson thanks his coaches, teammates and fans during his Senior Night speech.

“These guys are becoming a team, they believe in each other and they didnt panic [when the lead was cut to two points],” said Monson. “We try to define ourselves on rebounding and defending. If that’s the barometer I put on the kids I’ve got to put it on myself and if that’s the case, we played pretty well.”

Everyone was key. Ware poured in 18 first-half points that included 13 straight at one point. Coming out of halftime with a 32-29 lead, Plater nailed consecutive three-pointers followed by a layup from Anderson for a quick 8-0 run. Santa Barbara chopped the lead down to two, but here came a crowd-pleasing Anderson breakaway dunk, then the 6’5″ guard pinned a shot from 7’3″ Greg Somogyi against the backboard and scored over the tall Hungarian on the other end. Plus the foul. For good measure, Ware tossed in a fadeaway three-pointer that sent him crashing into the scorer’s table and officially sealing the 49er victory with 2:02 left. Together, Phelps and Robinson had enough rebounds (28) to nearly equal all of the Gauchos combined (29).

In the end, Santa Barbara is still the defending conference tournament champion and more than capable of repeating, so I don’t know of too many teams that will look forward to seeing them in a darkened alley. But with their obvious on-court issues and rumored off-court infighting, Long Beach State is clearly in control with the Gauchos looking up at a few more teams, as well.

Monson has acknowledged in recent weeks that the team is playing very well, but cautioned that there is plenty of meaningful basketball left to be played.

“It’s not football, where half the schools go to a bowl game and everybody sings kumbaya at the end of the year,” he said.

Monson says that the biggest difference in the team’s play is a boost in confidence over the last month. The kids call it swagger. Whatever it is, Long Beach is definitely playing with plenty. Still, ever the head coach, Monson is keeping his eye on the prize.

“It’s going to need to be a team effort for 120 minutes in Anaheim.”