{"id":1799,"date":"2010-03-13T08:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/long-beach-state-heads-to-tournament-championship\/"},"modified":"2010-03-13T08:22:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:22:00","slug":"long-beach-state-heads-to-tournament-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/long-beach-state-heads-to-tournament-championship","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach State Heads To Tournament Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos by Andrew Veis<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"His second half drives into the lane led the Long Beach State offense. His quick hands and four steals led a swarming defense. His clutch free-throw shooting led his team to tomorrow night\u2019s championship game.<\/p>\n

After defeating Pacific, 68-61, sophomore point guard Casper Ware led his teammates across the court and into the beckoning arms of rabid 49er fans as they celebrated the victory in the Big West Tournament semifinals. Long Beach State will face top-seeded UC Santa Barbara on Saturday evening for the Big West Tournament championship and a berth into the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t perfect but it survived us, and we advance,\u201d said head coach Dan Monson. \u201cWe\u2019re in a position that we started the season trying to be, but now we\u2019ve got to get one more. I like how we\u2019re playing and hopefully we\u2019ll attack tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacific had beaten Long Beach State twice during the regular season, and earned a share of the Big West Conference championship and the tournament\u2019s #2 seed. The 49ers came into the tournament as the #3 seed and soundly defeated Cal Poly SLO on Thursday night, gaining momentum that may have carried them past Pacific on Friday. Long Beach State will face a UC Santa Barbara team that split two conference games, but the 49ers have been playing exceptional basketball this week. Perhaps inspired by the high stakes, Long Beach State was at their best against Pacific.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019 all about how you\u2019re playing at the end of the year,\u201d Monson said. \u201cI give these guys a lot of credit; they\u2019re really hungry right now and they\u2019re attacking at both ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 5-foot-9 Ware scored a game-high 22 points and made 10-of-11 free throws \u2013 all in the second half \u2013 to thwart Pacific\u2019s repeated comeback attempts and hang on to the win. Ware added six assists and five steals for good measure.<\/p>\n

\"\"His stellar second half was the perfect compliment to a strong first half, led by sophomore forward Larry Anderson. For the second consecutive game in the Big West Tournament, Anderson turned up the aggression and sprinted down the floor like a deer to spark offensive bursts that gave Long Beach a 34-21 lead at half. He finished the half by hooking up with Ware for a thunderous two-handed alley oop and then rejected a Pacific attempt on the other end. Anderson finished the game with 14 points, four rebounds, two assists and two blocks.<\/p>\n

While Anderson sparked the first half and Ware closed in the second, it was teamwork that defeated Pacific on Friday night. <\/p>\n

The 49ers clamped down on Pacific\u2019s productive big men by double-teaming the ball whenever it entered the post. That meant the entire defense had to rotate to cover the weak side, and Long Beach State executed the plan to perfection. The energy and athleticism of the 49ers was apparent, and Pacific committed nine turnovers and shot just 30.8% from the field in the first half.<\/p>\n

In the second half, Pacific turned up the defensive heat in an attempt to knock Long Beach State out of rhythm.<\/p>\n

The Tigers used lengthy 6-foot-6 forward Joe Ford to harass Ware all over the court, and a fatigued 49er squad had trouble handling the pressure. After building a 16-point lead early in the second half, Long Beach State watched Pacific cut the deficit to just three points at 54-51.<\/p>\n

Senior 49er guard Stephan Gilling \u2013 who added 12 points \u2013 hit a crucial three-pointer in transition to force Pacific out of their dangerous zone defense, but Pacific\u2019s Pat Eveland answered with a three of his own to give Long Beach just a 59-56 lead.<\/p>\n

\"\"From there on out, the game was in Ware\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

The sophomore willed Long Beach State to win with a curling baseline jumper and 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch, adding a deciding steal with 10.3 seconds remaining that sealed the victory for the 49ers. Ware scored seven of the team\u2019s final nine points.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong Beach played great defense and Ware did a tremendous job,\u201d said Pacific head coach Bob Thomason. \u201cI think Long Beach is in a mindset where they feel comfortable that they can [win the championship].\u201d<\/p>\n

Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara will face off for the Big West Tournament Championship at 5:00pm Saturday in the Anaheim Convention Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casper Ware scored 22 points and the 49ers played exceptional defense to defeat Pacific, 68-61, in the Big West Tournament semifinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}