<\/span>The first (UC Davis) got theirs on Thursday, and on Saturday night it was clear the Pacific team was hoping for the same.<\/p>\n2. Coming in, you just knew it was going to be a close game. <\/span>In fact, four of the Niners’ last five games have all been decided by six points or less. <\/span>Add to that the three overtime games (including two that went to double-OT) at the beginning of the season, and it’s clear the Niners have been playing a lot of games down to the wire this year.<\/p>\n3. During pregame warm-ups you could tell how beat-up the Niners were when they had only ten guys during shoot-around. <\/span>The most glaring absence was of course Donovan Morris. <\/span>We know this team is deep, but it’s when a team plays without their leader (and leading-scorer) that you start to see what they are made of. <\/span>Eventually the five injured guys came out of the locker room too; including D-Mo, who watched the entire shoot-around from under the basket. <\/span>He’s a great cheerleader and teammate during the game, but during warm-ups it’s clear he just has to be near the action.<\/p>\n4. “The National Champion Long Beach 49er Dance Team.” <\/span>It has a nice ring to it. <\/span>Of course “National Champion” anything is gonna have a nice ring to it.<\/p>\n5. There ended up being a decent crowd, but after a sell-out a couple Thursdays ago I was a little disappointed there weren’t more people there on a Saturday night. <\/span>The Monson Maniac section was pretty full, but there’s always room for more. <\/span>Come on Long Beach, on a cold rainy weekend there is absolutely no better place to spend a Saturday evening than the Pyramid.<\/p>\n6. Speaking of the Monson Maniacs, I definitely like the Black and Gold shirts better than last year’s tie-dyed ones. <\/span>But I still love seeing the tie-dye because all I can think is “Wow, you saw last year’s team and you were willing to come back?”<\/p>\n7. Free-throw contests, dance teams, and t-shirt tossing–all of it is fine and good, but for my money there is nothing better than dogs playing with Frisbees during halftime. <\/p>\n
8. One last note about the Monson Maniacs: before each game a player from the other team is targeted. <\/span>He’s going to be taunted, and booed, every time he touches the ball. <\/span>That player on Pacific was supposed to #41, Bryan LeDuc. <\/span>But the Maniacs were nowhere to be found. <\/span>Come on, this guy hit two dagger 3s AND he fouls out and you guys weren’t all over him?!? <\/span>You guys need to make him cry for his momma.<\/p>\n9. As I mentioned before, the Niners are no strangers to OT (or to double-OT for that matter). <\/span>So why is the concession stand closed before the end of the 4th? <\/span>We’re screaming, we’re yelling, we’re starving–and we’ve got nowhere to get food or drinks? <\/span>Come on Pyramid, if the team is willing to put in the extra time, so should you.<\/p>\n10. T.J. Robinson and Larry Anderson were definitely able to step up in the points department in Donovan Morris’ absence. <\/span>And Casper Ware stepped up in the clutch department. <\/span>But I can’t help but think that if D-Mo is on the floor for the last shot in regulation, there’s no way it goes to OT.<\/p>\n11. <\/span>I don’t want to talk too much about stats (you can read the game write-up for those) but the Niners out-rebounded Pacific 36-22, including 12 LBSU offensive rebounds. <\/span>Pacific was just nailing it from behind the arc but it was the Niners’ ability to control the glass that kept them in this game.<\/p>\n12. So Domino’s has an offer that if Long Beach scores 80 or more, everybody in attendance gets free breadsticks. <\/span>The Niners scored 81. <\/span>I’m not saying that was the only reason they went to double-OT, I’m just saying I hope the guys called Domino’s to deliver to their post-game victory party, because they earned those free breadsticks.<\/p>\n13. Long Beach has been at home a lot lately and they owe the road some games. <\/span>They have 6 conference games left, and 5 of them are on the road. <\/span>I know that making the drive to Cal Poly or to UCSB is asking a lot of the fans, but look into that Wednesday game at Fullerton on Feb 18th. <\/span>We need to go support these guys. <\/span>Because don’t forget, when we go to Fullerton, we’ll be looking for some revenge.<\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leaky Pipes brings you the double-OT thriller as he saw it from the stands.<\/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-4758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758","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=4758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4758"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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