After the Long Beach State men’s basketball team finished its Tuesday morning film session, senior Guard Casper Ware came away with one conclusion on how to beat UC Riverside — contain senior guard Phil Martin.
“They [UCR] have one player who really controls most of their offense, Phil Martin,” Ware said. “If we cut him down, stop their penetration and rebound, we’ll be good.”
Martin is having himself a stellar senior season, averaging 17.2 points per game—good for second in the Big West Conference. The 6-4 guard is shooting 40.8 percent from the field while pulling down a team-leading 5.3 rebounds per contest.
Martin’s best performance of the season was a 33-point, 11 rebound game in a 79-70 overtime victory over UC Santa Barbara.
LBSU senior guard Larry Anderson will most likely draw the assignment of trying to check the Highlanders’ prolific scorer, and rightfully so.
Anderson did a masterful defensive job last Saturday against the Big West’s leading scorer, UCSB’s Orlando Johnson. Anderson held Johnson to his second lowest scoring output of the season, limiting him to just 10 points on 4 of 15 shooting.
Ware said there might be times when he needs to switch onto Martin, but for the most part, Anderson will be the lone man handling the task.
“Larry is going to start off on him,” Ware said. “We’re really not going to double him, but there might be times where I need to guard him on fastbreaks.”
The matchup pits the ‘Niners second-best scoring offense (73.2 points per game) against the Highlanders’ second-ranked scoring defense (62.9 points allowed per contest).
“They [UCR] have a really packed defense,” Ware said. “They want you to shoot the outside jumper, so we don’t want to settle for that.”
Ware added: “We want to move the ball around and get cuts going to the basket. If we move the ball and make them come out and play us, it will be easier to get into the paint.”
UCR’s next best scorer is senior guard Kareem Nitoto, who averages 10.2 points per contest, while pulling down 3.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
The Highlanders hold an overall record of 10-9 on the season, but are playing well in conference play thus far. Their 4-2 Big West mark has them knotted up in a three-way tie for second place with Cal State Fullerton and UCSB. UCR has won four of its last five contests including the big win over the Gauchos on Jan. 12.
UCR is not quite as battle tested as the 49ers, but they have played a number of good teams this season, including University of Texas El-Paso (UTEP), Villanova, San Diego State and UCSB.
LBSU brings a 14-6 overall record into Thursday’s matchup, including a perfect 7-0 in the Big West.
Despite being the favorite to win this game, Ware knows that the ‘Niners can’t overlook the Highlanders in anticipation for their big matchup with the Titans on Saturday.
“We haven’t watched anything on Fullerton,” he said. “We have to take it one game at a time and worry about Thursday’s game. After that, we’ll worry about Fullerton.”
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