Even before starting guard Kejuan Johnson and backup forward Mark Dawson were suspended, Long Beach State men’s basketball team was by no means a shoe in to win the Big West Conference.
In the last game with Johnson and Dawson in uniform, the 49ers lost to UC Irvine, a mediocre team which posts a 11-13 record and is 5-5 in the Big West.
So it wasn’t as though LBSU (15-6, 6-2) was storming through the Big West when it was at full strength. But to their credit, even with the suspensions hanging over their heads this past weekend, the 49ers responded with two wins they had to have.
The question now is, can LBSU play as well as it did this past weekend for the rest of the season?
It will be difficult, mostly because LBSU will have to find success where it hasn’t found it all year – the road.
The conference schedule has been top-heavy with home games for LBSU. Six of the eight conference games played this year have been at The Walter Pyramid, where the 49ers are undefeated this season. But both of their Big West road games, at Cal State Northridge and UCI, were losses.
This weekend, LBSU are beginning its most difficult, and most important, road trip of the season.
It starts Thursday, when LBSU goes up to San Luis Obispo to meet Cal Poly (11-9, 3-4), which is 7-1 at home this season. That will be the easy game on the trip.
On Saturday, LBSU will go down Interstate 101 to take on second-place UC Santa Barbara (14-6, 5-2).
The 49ers manhandled UCSB in their first meeting this season, winning 101-65. Things might go different at The Thunderdome, which has traditionally been the most difficult place for visiting teams in the Big West, but this year UCSB is a mediocre 5-4 at home. Although, count on The Thunderdome to be rocking when first-place LBSU comes to town.
That then leads to the big one, when LBSU travels to Cal State Fullerton (16-5, 6-3) next Wednesday.
Like LBSU, Fullerton has been dominant at home this season, going 11-0. The 49ers won the matchup between the two teams at The Walter Pyramid on Jan. 18, 95-85. That was with the currently suspended Johnson scoring 20 points and Dawson playing 19 minutes off the bench. If the two are still suspended when the 49ers go to the O.C., it will take an almost perfect game for the 49ers to pull off the upset.
If LBSU can win two out of three of these road games, it would be a huge accomplishment and put it in a great position for the looming Big West Tournament. That being said, it is well within the realm of possibility that the 49ers could lose all three games, which would be almost apocalyptic in their chances to win the conference.
It is critical for the 49ers, which currently has a half game lead over UCSB and a full game lead over Fullerton, to finish in either first or second place in the Big West regular season standings.
The top two teams get a free pass into the semifinals of the Big West Tournament. If the 49ers don’t finish in the top two, that means they will have to win three games, in three consecutive nights, to win the conference. They almost pulled that off last year, but the 49ers burned out in the final minutes of the conference final.
If Johnson and Dawson are still suspended when the tournament comes around, it might be too much to ask of a depleted 49er squad to win three high intensity games in a row.
So the bottom line is this, if LBSU continues to struggle on the road, its chances of participating in the NCAA Tournament are slim.
