LONG BEACH — Cal State Fullerton kept its postseason hopes alive with a 76-71 victory over rival Long Beach State in a Big West Conference men’s basketball game on Thursday night at the Walter Pyramid.
Fullerton (13-16 overall, 6-11 Big West) is still stuck in 10th place in the conference standings after Cal State Bakersfield (12-17, 7-11) upset UC San Diego on Thursday night, one spot out of qualifying for the Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nevada in two weeks.
“We’ve got to win,” Fullerton coach Dedrique Taylor said. “I don’t care what everybody else does, we’ve got to continue to win and put ourselves in contention. We can’t hope and pray for everybody else. As long as we take care of our business, we’ll be fine.”
DJ Brewton led the way with 26 points, John Mikey Square scored 17 points and shot 9 for 11 from the free-throw line and Grayson Carper scored 12 points off the bench on 4-for-8 shooting from 3-point range for the Titans, who have three regular-season games remaining.
Long Beach (18-11, 10-7) is still comfortably in fourth place, one game behind UC Davis and 1½ games in front of Cal State Northridge. UC San Diego is not eligible for postseason play this season and LBSU hosts UC Davis in the regular-season finale, so Long Beach still has a chance to slide into third and earn the No. 2 seed for the tournament.
“We win these three and we can still finish as the second seed and get a bye, but we’ve got three tough games and we’ve got to play better than we did today,” Long Beach coach Dan Monson said.
Jadon Jones shot 5 for 12 from 3-point range and scored 23 points to lead Long Beach. AJ George scored 15 points, Lassina Traore had 12 points and 12 rebounds and Aboubacar Traore had 10 points and 11 rebounds before he was ejected with 8:47 left and Long Beach leading by three.
Both teams were missing key players.
Fullerton was without second-leading scorer Max Jones (15.5 ppg) for a fourth straight game because of a foot injury.
Long Beach was missing leading scorer Marcus Tsohonis (17.1 ppg), who missed his second consecutive game with a groin injury.
“With Marcus out and (Aboubacar) out, we had some odd lineups out there,” Monson said. “At the end of the day though, we could have survived it if we defended at the end. They were able to score after (Aboubacar) left, I think all but three times.”
Long Beach used a 16-0 run early in the second half to move ahead 42-36.
LBSU was still ahead by three points when Aboubacar Traore committed a flagrant 2 foul on Tory San Antonio and was ejected.
“I thought it was deserving,” Taylor said. “It was a big momentum-changing play and our guys took advantage of that.”
Long Beach regained the lead 23 seconds later and the score stayed within two points until Carper hit a 3-pointer to give Fullerton a 68-64 lead with 4:06 left.
Long Beach retook the lead 71-70 on a three-point play by George with 1:33 left. Brewton tied it with a free throw on the other end and Square then poked away a pass into the interior and Brewton made two more free throws for a 73-71 lead with 41.2 seconds left.
Long Beach missed two more 3-point tries down the stretch and Square shot 3 for 4 from the line in the final 24.6 seconds to seal the win.
“I thought in the second half he dominated the game in the paint and at the free-throw line,” Taylor said of Square. “I thought he showed up and showed out.”
The Titans scored the first eight points of the game to gain an early edge.
LBSU missed its first four shots before Jones sank a 3-pointer, but Long Beach couldn’t get any closer than five the rest of the half.
Carper capped a 10-0 run with a 3-pointer from the baseline to extend the lead into double digits at 29-14 with 6:24 left in the half.
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Carper hit another 3-pointer from the opposite baseline to give Fullerton its biggest lead of the opening 20 minutes at 34-18 with 4:16 remaining in the half.
Those would be the final points of the half for the Titans, however.
Long Beach scored the final five points before the break, the last three on another 3-pointer by Jones with one second left that trimmed the lead to 34-26 at the half.
LBSU shot 32.3% from the floor in the first half and committed 11 turnovers.
“They came out, they hit us early and put us on our heels,” Monson said. “We recovered and we hit them back and took control of the game and then the flagrant 2 on (Aboubacar).”