By snoadmin
Guards Donovan Morris and Casper Ware continued their stellar play Wednesday night at the Walter Pyramid as Long Beach State won its fourth straight game, 80-61, over Pepperdine.
After averaging 27 points last week in two LBSU wins, Morris had a game-high 20 including four 3-pointers and Ware added 15 points, eights assists and five steals.
The ‘Niners (4-2) were deadly from long distance, draining 12-of-23 3-point buckets to Pepperdine’s 1-of-13 attempts.
“We’re a good 3-point shooting team when we are in rhythm,” head coach Dan Monson said. “We did a lot better job in the second half of running offense and getting [3-pointers] that were within the context of our offense.”
An all-Big West Conference freshman selection a year ago, Greg Plater also knocked down four 3-pointers, including three in the second half to put the game out of reach in front of 2,048 fans.
Cornel Williams added seven points and six rebounds, while Brian Freeman had another productive game in front of the home crowd with five points, six assists, four rebounds and two steals.
Eleven ‘Niners registered at least a point, but senior guard Maurice Clady missed the front end of a one-and-one with just over a minute to play that would have given the whole roster a point in the box score.
Dennis Agre and Dane Suttle Jr. had 11 points apiece for the Waves (1-6). Lorne Jackson added 10 points.
Pepperdine has now lost six in a row after opening their season with a win.
Not everything went Long Beach’s way. They committed 15 turnovers, got out-rebounded and, at times, played like they were the “favorites” as Monson put it.
“I think we can play better than that,” Monson said. “I think we need to grow with our maturity in these situations and hopefully this game will help us.”
The Waves dominated the offensive glass, grabbing 20 rebounds on LBSU’s end of the floor and 40 total. Long Beach had 34 rebounds. All those offensive boards led to 20 second chance points for Pepperdine to Long Beach’s two.
The players, especially Morris, were more upbeat after going through a long 6-25 season last year.
“We can win by a half a point if they let us,” Morris said. “It feels good to get a win. Four straight? I’m on cloud nine right now.”
Those wins are coming via more help for Morris, who recognizes defenses have to give him a little more space now that he has more weapons around him.
One of those weapons is Ware, who has played three straight solid games at a position where freshman don’t always thrive.
“We got a lot of work to do but we are going the right way right now,” Ware said. “We just don’t want to take that step back anytime, we want to keep pushing forward.”
Long Beach led 36-28 at the intermission. It’s the first time since the season opener at BYU that LBSU held a halftime edge.
In an up-and-down first 20 minutes, both teams looked to push the pace.
Ware and Morris led the way for The Beach, scoring nine points apiece.
Jackson had seven to lead the Waves and Jonathan Dupre had six.
Pepperdine out-rebounded the 49ers, 22-16, including 11 offensive rebounds but made only 11-of-33 from the field. LBSU made 50 percent of its shots in the first half (13-of-26).
The quick pace led to 18 total turnovers, 10 for the Waves and eight by the 49ers.
The ‘Niners travel to the Bay Area this weekend for a Saturday night game against the San Francisco Dons (5-3). Tip-off is at 7:30 p.m.
