<\/p>\n
It was a game they maybe could have won, and Long Beach State\u2019s effort was a lot more consistent than it was in their first 76 Classic showdown against West Virginia, but the result was the same as they fell 87-79 to the Clemson Tigers.<\/p>\n
Eugene Phelps, T.J. Robinson and Casper Ware all had phenomenal games, as Robinson and Ware set new career-highs for scoring\u2014Robinson in particular stood out as dominant against an elite program, scoring 25 points and grabbing 15 boards.\u00a0 <\/span>Aside from a great stat-line (20 points and 10 assists), Ware\u2019s greatest contribution was as what his coach referred to as a \u201cone man press break.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>He only committed four turnovers in 39 minutes of running the point against the Tigers\u2019 backcourt press.\u00a0 <\/span>Phelps also posted a double double with ten boards and 12 points, and impressed his coach with the way he continued to battle even after a rough start.<\/p>\n \u201cCasper, T.J. and Gene were some of the best athletes on the floor,\u201d said Long Beach coach Dan Monson after the game.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cBut there wasn\u2019t enough help for them.\u201d<\/p>\n With Steph Gilling playing pretty well (12 points on 4-9 three-point shooting) and Greg Plater doing the same, it\u2019s pretty obvious he\u2019s referring to his fourth sophomore, Larry Anderson.\u00a0 <\/span>The Niners\u2019 leader on the court both emotionally and statistically, Anderson has more than struggled at the Classic; in 59 minutes over two games, he\u2019s 0-8 from the field, with six points and twelve turnovers.\u00a0 <\/span>Given that he came into the tournament averaging 18 a game, it\u2019s no wonder his coach is upset.<\/p>\n \u201cYesterday was a little understandable,\u201d said Monson, referring to West Virginia\u2019s style of defense, \u201cBut this was open court, it was a Larry Anderson game.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Monson speculated that there was a snowball effect on his confidence from the West Virginia game, and said Anderson will have to work it out.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYou can\u2019t fake confidence\u2014he\u2019s gotta play his way through it.\u00a0 <\/span>But he\u2019s got one rebound, and Plater has five\u2014that\u2019s unacceptable.\u00a0 <\/span>His activity level has to improve for him to play his way through it.\u201d<\/p>\n Monson has consistently referred to how thin the margin of error is when playing high-caliber teams, and his team did their best to blow through that in one five minute stretch of the first half, when Phelps, then Anderson, then Anderson, then Robinson, then Ware all missed easy lay-ins.\u00a0 <\/span>Clemson went cold during that period, and if Long Beach had taken some points out of that stretch, the game may have gone differently; the same can be said, of course, for their free throw shooting.\u00a0 <\/span>Once again they did a great job drawing fouls (going into the bonus with 9:26 left in the first half and five minutes into the second) but a poor job at the line\u2014when you go 20-34 from the charity stripe and miss seven layups in a game, it\u2019s easy for coaches and players to wonder what could have been.<\/p>\n After a little run, the Tigers took a four-point lead into halftime, and quickly pulled away in the second, scoring five points in the first thirty seconds, and taking an 11-point lead in the first minute.\u00a0 <\/span>Long Beach chipped away to bring it within one point at 61-60, but at that point, according to Monson, \u201cWe ran out of gas a little bit.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>He leaned heavily on his starters, with Plater getting his usual starter-esque minutes with 22.\u00a0 <\/span>Aside from those six players?\u00a0 <\/span>A total of three minutes off the bench, two for Richardson and one for Fleming.<\/p>\n Whether he finds help in his other starters (Anderson) or more players off the bench, Monson pointed out, “You’re not going to beat Clemson with three guys.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Monson seemed much more pleased with his team\u2019s effort in the eight-point defeat, but says he\u2019d told his team, \u201cThese [neutral court games] are the ones you gotta try to steal.\u00a0 <\/span>Texas at Texas, Duke at Duke is a different story.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not Texas at Texas or Duke at Duke, but the 49ers will play UCLA in the ACC on Sunday, at 11:30am.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a better effort than the 49ers\u2019 first 76 Classic showdown, but the result was the same as Clemson defeated Long Beach on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"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-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","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=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}