Ryan ChartrandANAHEIM – Less than 13 minutes.
That’s how far away the Cal Poly men’s basketball team was Saturday night from locking up its first trip to the NCAA Tournament.
But the Mustangs, who led by five points at halftime and by one with only 12 minutes, 53 seconds remaining, were overwhelmed down the stretch by a hungry, senior-laden Long Beach State team. Cal Poly wound up losing 94-83 in the Big West Conference Tournament championship game before 4,130 fans at the Anaheim Convention Center Arena in front of a national television audience on ESPN2.
“I think that’s what hurts the most, is putting in the hard work all season,” Cal Poly senior forward Derek Stockalper said. “To come up a little short in the end, it hurts. There’s no other way to put it.”
With tears streaming down many of their faces, the Mustangs stayed on the court after the final buzzer to silently watch Long Beach State fans storm the court in a raucous celebration that culminated with the 49ers dancing, posing with the trophy and cutting down the nets.
While the top-seeded 49ers (24-7) advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1994-95, the second-seeded Mustangs (19-11) failed to reach March Madness for the first time since moving to the Division I level in 1994-95. Both teams capitalized on a pair of byes into the conference tournament semifinals.
Cal Poly jumped out to leads of 13-7, 25-18 and 33-23 before heading to halftime up 35-30 and even led 51-50 with 12:53 left.
But Long Beach State then began to score at a blistering pace, piling up 3-pointers and slam dunks until it had scored 40 points in the final 9:45 of the game.
In the end, the 49ers had scored 64 points after halftime.
“It was a great basketball game, a typical Long Beach State team,” Cal Poly head coach Kevin Bromley said. “(The 49ers) didn’t panic. They had poise.”
Most poised of all for Long Beach State was senior guard Aaron Nixon, the Big West Player of the Year. He played all 40 minutes and finished with team highs of 29 points and 11 rebounds.
“I voted for (Nixon) as Player of the Year and he showed he was Player of the Year,” Bromley said. “We did have to keep different guys on him. He’s a good player; it’s hard to hold him down. Big players step up in big occasions and I thought he did that. . (The 49ers) share the basketball, they’ve got eight mature seniors, they have poise and they can make big shots.”
Bromley’s team sank plenty of big shots early Saturday, but not enough late.
“I’m really proud of my basketball team, collectively as a group,” Bromley said. “It was by committee that we had this success we had.”
“Success” is putting it mildly for this Mustangs squad.
This season, the Mustangs set a Division I school record for wins in a season (19), had their best Big West winning percentage ever (.643), their best record and most wins overall since going 19-9 at the Division II level in 1991-92, a 12-2 mark at home and 13 wins in their last 16 games.
Bromley and Stockalper agreed that the 49ers did not make wholesale adjustments in the second half, but simply that their players were having increased success getting to the hoop.
“I didn’t see that they were running new stuff that we hadn’t seen before,” Bromley said. “We did post Nixon a little bit. He’s pretty good about throwing it out. I thought dribble penetration hurt us.”
Stockalper added: “I didn’t see very much (different). They were just taking the ball to the basket.”
The win was crucial for fifth-year Long Beach State head coach Larry Reynolds, who had reportedly been on the hot seat with a contract that expires after the season.
“Our kids persevered all year,” Reynolds said. “Our guys, I think, have hung in there to get to this point.”
Although roughly a thousand Cal Poly fans – including hundreds of vocal Mustang Maniacs, the band, cheerleaders and dance team – made their presence felt, Long Beach State fans outnumbered the Cal Poly contingent. While Long Beach State’s campus is less than 20 miles away from the Anaheim Convention Center Arena, Cal Poly’s is more than 230.
“The crowd got behind us,” Reynolds said. “We took it from there.”
That crowd was ignited most on perhaps the game’s biggest momentum-swinging play – when Kevin Houston found Mark Dawson for a one-handed alley-oop dunk that looked more like a windmill slam and sent the black-and-gold clad 49ers fans into delirium.
The play was part of 10 unanswered points for Long Beach State, which scored 16 in the final 1:27.
That was a significant contrast from the first half, in which the two teams traded baskets early on. They finished with 10 lead changes in a game that was tied at three different intervals.
Cal Poly sophomore guard Chaz Thomas scored 25 of his game- and career-high 31 points in the second half and had two steals. Junior guard Dawin Whiten scored 15 points and sophomore guard Trae Clark had 10 points and seven assists for the Mustangs, who had an eight-game winning streak snapped.
While Cal Poly was 8 for 28 from 3-point range, Long Beach State was 28 for 33 from the free-throw line.
The 49ers on Sunday were granted a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play fifth-seeded Tennessee (22-10) in the South Region in a first-round game in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday. The time of the game, which will be televised on CBS, will be announced Monday.
Long Beach State averages 80.3 points per game and ranked 10th in the nation in points per game (79.9) through last Thursday.
“We score a lot of points and keep the pressure on you offensively,” Reynolds said. “We try to get up and down the floor. Our kids compete. They’re going to compete for 40 minutes. Even if they get down, they’re going to come at you. That’s one thing that got us to this point, is the competitive spirit of this team.”
Of Nixon, Reynolds said: “He’s the heart and soul of our team. He’s the emotional leader and the offensive leader, the guy we go to in the clutch. He’s the one that kind of drives the team. You’ll see a player (in the NCAA Tournament) that is very focused and doesn’t want to give in.”
Bromley suggested the 49ers could surprise some people in the NCAA Tournament.
“You can control tempo with guards,” he said. “It depends on matchup.”
Now Cal Poly returns all but three seniors – first-team all-conference and starting forward Stockalper, Honorable Mention all-conference and starting forward Tyler McGinn and reserve forward Joe Henry.
The Mustangs will bring back two all-conference players in second-teamer Whiten and Honorable Mention pick Clark and all but two players who were in the rotation this year.
“We’re there,” Thomas said of next season. “We were this close tonight. We’re going to take this into the offseason. Hopefully next year we’ll be in the tournament. It’s hard work – we’ll put it in.”
Stockalper, who is likely to have multiple offers to play professionally overseas next season, echoed those sentiments.
“I think it’ll be solid next year if they stick together and play together,” he said. “They’ll be a good team in this league.”
Notes
Cal Poly was playing in the Big West tourney title game for the first time since 2002-03, where it lost 57-54 to Utah State. Nixon was named tournament MVP. He was joined on the all-tournament team by Clark, Stockalper, Dawson, Cal State Fullerton junior forward Scott Cutley and Cal State Fullerton senior guard Bobby Brown. Toward the end of Cal Poly’s 81-56 semifinal win over Cal State Fullerton on Friday, the Titans’ fans even started chanting “Beat the Beach,” referring to Cal Poly. Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton are long-time rivals. One of the officials for Saturday’s game was Bill Vinovich, who is also an NFL referee.