COLUMBUS, Ohio – While sitting in the Nationwide Arena Friday afternoon watching Long Beach State attempt to play athletic powerhouse Tennessee, I kept telling myself that the 49ers were going to start playing defense.
But after Tennessee kept making layup after layup in the second half, I slowly realized, “Wow, they aren’t going to play defense. Really, they aren’t going to play any defense.”
It’s sad, but after 12 years of not participating in the NCAA Tournament, Friday was an embarrassment.
After the game, a reporter from CBS SportsLine said, “I have to say, watching Long Beach State roll over and die was pretty entertaining.”
Tennessee tied its school record for points in a game. Not in the NCAA Tournament, but in all men’s college basketball games – ever.
The NCAA Tournament is not the place to be tying point records. It’s where teams are supposed to grind out victories, and when a team does score 86 points, it is supposed to win – not lose by 35.
Tennessee hit jump shots – wide-open jump shots. It was as if Tennessee’s pre-game shoot-around never ended. But it didn’t have to be like this.
LBSU is not your typical mid-major team. When people usually think of mid-major, they think of a team that isn’t all that talented yet makes up for it with hustle.
That’s not LBSU. The 49ers won the Big West by being way more talented than any other team in the conference.
With its speed and athleticism, LBSU could have been a good defensive team. The problem was that the 49ers were able to get away playing mediocre defense against mediocre Big West competition, but when defense mattered the most, they failed to step it up.
Before the Big West Tournament, I wrote that head coach Larry Reynolds deserved to keep his job if he won the conference tournament, which he did. I’ll stick by that, but Friday’s pitiful performance did give President F. King Alexander and Athletic Director Vic Cegles a good excuse to let Reynolds continue his coaching career somewhere else.
Talking to Cegles after the game, he gave no impression that Reynolds was going to be offered a new contract, and I would be shocked if Reynolds is back coaching on the LBSU sidelines next season.
Whoever does take over the head coaching duties will be facing a pretty big challenge next year, as all five starters and the top two bench players are out of eligibility. It might be a while before LBSU men’s basketball goes back to the Big Dance.
But overall, it was a good season for the LBSU men’s basketball team. It’s too bad it ended in such an embarrassing fashion.
The only thing discovered in Columbus was a loss.
