By A season that will be known as a season to forget has finally concluded.
Long Beach State men’s basketball (7-25) dropped its fifteenth consecutive game on Saturday in an 83-69 loss to the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs (14-18) at the Walter Pyramid to close out the 2024-25 season.
With the win, Cal Poly earned the eighth and final seed of the Big West Tournament that begins next week in Henderson, Nevada.
Even with the roster’s lack of continuity entering the season, it was unpredictable that things would play out as poorly as they did. The Beach will miss the conference tournament for the first time since 2004, going 3-17 in the Big West and 7-25 overall.
The Mustangs shot LBSU out of the gym in one of the most mesmerizing three-point displays seen all year. 24 of Cal Poly’s first 27 points came from beyond the arc, beginning 11-22 from deep in the first half alone, with three separate Mustang players tallying three of makes from deep.
Despite the Mustangs’ elite marksmanship, The Beach trailed by just six going into halftime due to the performance of senior guard Devin Askew. With 21 of LBSU’s 41 points in the first half, Askew’s shot making from distance kept things close, giving The Beach a chance to play spoiler in the second half.
Seconds into the half, Askew went down with a leg injury getting back on defense in transition. As he fell to the ground in pain and agony, grasping at his hamstring, so did the hopes of ending the worst losing streak in program history.
Without freshman guard Kam Martin, who went down in the first half, The Beach didn’t have the firepower to compete with the sharpshooting Mustangs, who finished the game with 18 three-pointers.
“[Askew] has been amazing for us for a lot of different reasons,” LBSU head coach Chris Acker said. “When it comes to conference basketball, you gotta have guys that can make shots and be a threat outside of the plays you’re running…he was a threat scoring, assisting and rebounding.”
Cal Poly’s lead inflated to 20 during the closing minutes of the half and a depleted LBSU cut the margin with a couple of threes in garbage time with both benches emptied to make things appear closer.
The loss embodied a season of pitiful basketball that found them continuously on the wrong side of every type of game, leading to reduced attendance in the student section as the season progressed, to the point where it looked empty in the season finale.
The Beach went 1-8 in one-possession games, 2-7 in games decided by 21 or more points (both wins against Division III teams) and 0-4 in overtime games.
After losing eight straight games in November, The Beach’s 15-game streak of losses surpasses the original record of 12 games.
It’s the least amount of wins in a season since 2007-08, with a nearly identical record, coincidentally, from former head coach Dan Monson’s first year at the helm of LBSU.
Following the 2007-2008 season, The Beach improved to .500 overall and a winning conference record, so how did that happen?
“Well first thing you have to have really good players,” Acker said. “We have to have more depth at every position. We have to improve our IQ…I’ve gotta find out more ways to guard different ways, I mean we tried a thousand different things this year.”
Acker tried to hold back his emotions at the postgame press conference and was upfront about the sour taste this season has left him with. Yet he stayed true to his championship aspirations for The Beach and acknowledges it will be an everyday pursuit to get done.
“This season was a learning experience that I’m grateful to be a part of, and I’m looking forward to great karma coming in the next year with all the one-two possession games we were in this season,” Acker said.
