Week of November 09, 2009
The Long Beach State (LBSU) men’s basketball team has been picked by some to win the Big West Conference (BWC) title, but right now, the 49ers are just looking to win their homecoming contest against the University of Alaska, Anchorage this Saturday as they open the 2009-10 season with a 4:05 p.m. game in The Walter Pyramid.
A media panel recently tabbed LBSU as the favorite to win this season’s BWC championship. At the same time, the panel and named one 49er player to its six-player preseason all-conference team.
The 49ers received 17 first-place votes from the 24-member voting panel for a total of 209 points. The team returns four starters and eight letter winners from the 2008-09 squad, which finished 15-15 overall and 10-6 in Big West games, tying for second in the final conference standings.
Third-year LBSU Coach Dan Monson welcomes back three members of last season’s BWC All-Freshman Team – Larry Anderson, Casper Ware and T.J. Robinson. The trio combined for 44 percent of the 49ers’ offense a year ago. Anderson, who averaged 10.8 points and 4.0 rebounds per game, became only the second freshman in BWC history to be named first team all-conference. Robinson and senior guard Stephan Gilling also received all-conference accolades in the form of honorable mention selections.
The media selected a preseason all-conference team comprised of three sophomores and three juniors. The six honorees included LBSU’s Anderson, Kyle Austin (UC Riverside), Orlando Johnson (UC Santa Barbara), Eric Wise (UC Irvine) and Joe Harden and Mark Payne of UC Davis. Anderson and Austin are 2008-09 first team all-conference performers. Harden, Payne and Wise all earned All-Big West Second Team selections last year.
Despite the ringing endorsement from the media panel, however, the 49ers aren’t looking ahead to conference play just yet.
Before opening conference play on Jan. 2 at UC Riverside, LBSU will face what probably is the toughest non-conference schedule of any team in the country. The ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll was released recently, and the 49ers are scheduled to face four top-10 teams and guaranteed to play seven of the top 48 teams in the poll.
The Beach visits three top 10 teams (No. 3 Texas, No. 5 Kentucky, No. 8 Duke), while playing No. 9 West Virginia in the first round of the 76 Classic in Anaheim on Thanksgiving. LBSU also will travel to play No. 35 Notre Dame while hosting No. 48 Utah State. The 49ers are also guaranteed to play either No. 24 Clemson or No. 46 Texas A&M in the second round of the 76 Classic. There is also a chance that LBSU could play either No. 10 Butler, No. 18 Minnesota or No. 29 UCLA on the third day of the 76 Classic.