An interesting season, which has featured a long winning streak, suspensions and last second game-winners, will wrap up this weekend with Long Beach State’s men’s basketball team hosting UC Irvine tonight at 7 p.m. In the season finale, LBSU will travel to UC Riverside for a 5 p.m. tip-off Saturday.
LBSU is coming off an 82-76 win over Pacific on Monday night, which marked the 49ers seventh consecutive conference win for the 49ers.
Aaron Nixon led the way with 32 points and Sterling Byrd had 16 points and 10 rebounds in the win.
The games will have no affect for LBSU (10-2, 20-7) in the Big West standings, because the 49ers have already clinched the regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the Big West Tournament, which starts next week.
Even though the games are meaningless in the standings, LBSU head coach Larry Reynolds isn’t taking these last two games lightly.
“I don’t think motivation for these games is going to be a problem,” Reynolds said. “[The players] don’t want to go out and lose to anybody. Obviously, you don’t want to have any doubt in your mind going into the Big West Tournament.”
One of LBSU’s two conference losses this season was to UC Irvine, an 88-84 road loss to the Anteaters on Jan. 25.
“We have got to get off to a better start,” Reynolds said. “We fell behind very early in that game and were down as much as 24 points. We came back and actually had an opportunity to win the game, but this time we need to come with some intensity to start the game.”
Reynolds believes UC Irvine (6-7, 13-16) has a similar squad to Pacific.
“They are a hard matchup for us because they do have a lot of size and bulk and are pretty good around the basket,” Reynolds said.
The Anteaters are led by 6-foot-6 inch forward Patrick Sanders, who is averaging 12 points per game and forward Darren Fells, who is averaging 10.7 points per game.
UC Irvine is coming off a 73-59 victory over UC Davis on Feb.22.
LBSU will then finish the season against UC Riverside (1-12, 6-22). The two teams are going in opposite directions, with the Highlanders being at the bottom of the Big West and having lost five straight conference games.
In the first meeting this year, LBSU beat UC Riverside 99-65 on Jan. 20 at The Walter Pyramid.
Before facing LBSU, UC Riverside will be in Northern California tonight to go up against UC Davis.
For this weekend, Reynolds said he will probably dip into the bench more than he did against Pacific, but since LBSU won’t play its first game in the conference tournament until next Friday, he isn’t concerned about his team not being fresh for their Big West semifinal matchup.
Tonight’s game will be part of the Black & Blue rivalry series set up between LBSU and UC Irvine’s athletic teams. LBSU is leading the series this year, with a 16-6 advantage.
LBSU’s women’s tennis team and men’s volleyball teams will also face UC Irvine this weekend.
