pepperdine beats long beach state

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SoCalHoops College News

Pepperdine Drops 49'ers
In Season Opener--(Nov. 21, 1999)

There were several different views of what happened in this game, but any way you slice it, it was a different look for the Waves who came out running and applying full court defensive pressure, and it was a disappoining loss for the 49'ers, who dropped another close one to the Waves as Pepperdine won the season opener 76-74 on a last second layup by Tommie Prince at Pepperdine.

The first report is from the official Long Beach State website:

MALIBU, Calif. (Nov. 20) -- The Long Beach State men's basketball team dropped a tough 76-74 decison on Saturday afternoon at Pepperdine in their season-opening contest. Antrone Lee led the 49ers with 19 points and James Williams added 17 points and nine rebounds, but it wasn't enough as the 49ers open the season with a loss.

The 49ers led most of the first half only to see the Waves come back from an eight-point deficit to grab a 35-33 halftime advantage. In the second half the Waves led for most of the game before a three-pointer by Mate Milisa with 1:00 left to play tied the game at 74-74. The Waves went up 76-74 on a Tommie Prince basket with less than 0:30 left to play, but the 49ers couldn't score at the end as a desperation shot by D'Cean Bryant missed the mark and Pepperdine escaped with the win.

Prince led the Waves with 17 points, Brandon Armstrong had 13 points and Kelvin Gibbs 11 and seven rebounds. LBSU had four players in double digits in points as Milisa added 12 points and six rebounds and Ramel Lloyd 11 points to go along with Lee's 17 and Williams' 17. The 49ers shot .577 (30-52) from the field, including 6-11 from three-point range. Lloyd was 3-5 from long-range and Lee 2-3. Lee connected on eight of his 11 shots from the field while Williams was 7-10 from the field. Long Beach lost the game at the free throw line as The Beach was just 8-18 from the charity stripe while Pepperdine was 16-19 from the line. The 49ers also committed 23 turnovers and Pepperdine recorded 13 steals, three each by Prince and Robert Fomby.

Long Beach State will open the home portion of its schedule on Tuesday, November 23 as they host Cal State Dominguez Hills at 7:35 pm in The Pyramid.

Long Beach State 33 41 --- 74
Pepperdine 35 41 --- 76

Scoring: LBSU: Lee 19, Williams 17, Milisa 12, Lloyd 11, O'Neal 9, Bryant 6. Pepperdine: Prince 17, Armstrong 13, Gibbs 11, Lewis 9, Lalazarian 6, Minihan 6, Sheppard 4, Archie 4, Fomby 4, Suitt 2.

Rebounds: LBSU-30: Williams 9, Milisa 6, Lee 5, Lloyd 5, Bryant 2, O'Neal 2, Johnson 1. Pepperdine-31: Gibbs 7, Prince 6, Sheppard 6, Armstrong 3, Lewis 3, Lalazarian 2, Suitt 2, Minihan 1, Archie 1.

Assists: LBSU-15: Bryant 3, Lee 3, Milisa 3, O'Neal 2, Williams 1. Pepperdine-13: Archie 6, Prince 2, Armstrong 2, Gibbs 1, Lewis 1, Fomby 1.

Turnovers: Long Beach State 23, Pepperdine 20 Attendance: 1,163

The second report comes from Pepperdine's official website:

TOMMIE PRINCE SCORES 17 POINTS AS PEPPERDINE EDGES LONG BEACH STATE BY A FINAL SCORE OF 76-74

MALIBU, CA – Senior forward Tommie Prince’s lay-up with 32.4 seconds to play proved to be the game-winning basket, as host Pepperdine notched a 76-74 win over local rival Long Beach State in the season-opener for both teams on Saturday afternoon at Firestone Fieldhouse.

Long Beach State knotted the game at 74-74 when senior center Mate Milisa converted a three-point basket with 1:04 remaining.

Following a Pepperdine timeout, Waves’ senior guard Tezale Archie threaded a pass to an unguarded Prince under the basket for the uncontested lay-up.

Long Beach State had two opportunities to tie the game or send it into overtime, but senior forward D’Cean Bryant’s 35-foot attempt at the buzzer was well off the mark.

The victory marked a successful debut for Pepperdine head coach Jan van Breda Kolff who coached the last six seasons at Vanderbilt.

Prince paced the Pepperdine offense with 17 points, while sophomore guard Brandon Armstrong added 13 points for the Waves. Junior forward Kelvin Gibbs contributed 11 points and seven rebounds.

Senior forward Antrone Lee led the 49ers’ attack with a game-high total of 19 points, while junior forward James Williams scored 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Milisa chipped in 12 points, while junior guard Ramel Lloyd scored 11 points.

Pepperdine scored the first four points of the game, but Long Beach State rattled off 13 unanswered points to take a 13-4 at the 13:48 mark of the first half.

The Waves methodically chipped away at the Long Beach State advantage, and Pepperdine took a 35-33 lead at halftime.

Pepperdine opened the second half with a 9-3 scoring run to build a 44-36 lead with 15:31 to play. The game remained close with the Waves’ biggest lead of the contest coming at 71-62 when junior forward David Lalazarian converted a lay-up with 4:34 remaining.

Long Beach State battled back and eventually tied the game on Milisa’s three-point shot.

The 49ers shot 57.7 percent from the field, making 30 of 52 field goals, while Pepperdine shot 49.1 percent from the floor (27 of 55). The difference in the game was at the free throw line, as Long Beach State made only eight of 18 free throws (44.4 percent), while the Waves converted 84.2 percent (16 of 19) of their foul shots.

And finally, because the Daily News doesn't archive it's stories, and this one may be one we'll want to come back to later in the season, here's Vincent Bonsignore's story, which also appeared in the Long Beach Press Telegram (the two papers now have joint ownership, and neither is covering prep sports with any degree of regularity any longer on the web. . . ):

Pepperdine in high gear

By Vincent Bonsignore, Daily News

Drastic might be too harsh a word to describe the differences between this year's Pepperdine men's basketball team and the one from last
season.

But it's close.

No longer the methodical, grind-it-out club that former coach Lorenzo Romar preferred, the Waves unveiled new coach Jan Van Breda Kolff's uptempo style Saturday with a 76-74 nonconference victory over Long Beach State before 1,163 at Firestone Fieldhouse. Among the obvious changes from the Romar regime is fullcourt defensive pressure -- which the Waves used to force 23 turnovers -- and a slick motion offense in which players are urged to shoot the ball when open rather then run plays all the way through.

It's a style that takes advantage of Pepperdine's depth and athletic ability, and one the players have enthusiastically embraced.

"This is the way I like to play," said Tommie Prince, who scored a team-high 17 points, including the game-winning layup off a nice assist from Tezale Archie with 33 seconds left. Prince was frustrated in Romar's meticulous scheme, to the point that he set aside offensive aspirations in favor of defense just to have some kind of impact. He averaged just seven points a game last year but wound up as the West Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year. "I had to get known some kind of way, just to keep my name around," Prince said. "Now I can show everybody I can play offense."

The game-winning layup was an example of the flexibility Van Brenda Kolff's approach allows. The play was designed to go to Nick Sheppard in the post, but Long Beach overplayed Prince on the wing, allowing him to dart free with a hard cut along the baseline. Archie read it perfectly, then delivered a bullet pass to Prince for an open basket. "I'd like to say I was responsible for calling that one in the huddle," said Van Brenda Kolff, who coached six years at Vanderbilt before replacing Romar, now the coach at St. Louis, in April. "But that was a case where Tommie made a great cut, then Tezale read it and made a great pass."

Long Beach had a chance to tie it, but Archie forced D'Cean Bryant into a desperation 35-footer, which bounced harmlessly off the backboard at the buzzer.

Pepperdine was balanced offensively, getting the 17 points from Prince, 13 from Brandon Armstrong and 11 from Kelvin Gibbs, who overcame a slow start with nine points in the second half. Antrone Lee scored a game-high 19 points for Long Beach, while James Williams added 17. The 49ers, preseason favorites to win the Big West Conference, led 19-9 midway through the first half but caved in under the Waves' fullcourt press. Pepperdine closed the half with a 26-13 run to lead 35-32. Prince, a senior, scored eight of the final 12 points, although he didn't attempt his first shot until 14 minutes in.

Pepperdine never trailed in the second half, and led by as many as nine points before Long Beach tied it 74-74 on a 3-pointer by Mate Milisa with 1:03 remaining. Pepperdine answered with Prince's layup on its next possession. "You're going to get a lot of touches, it's not a point where you can't shoot the ball," Prince said. "If you're open you're open, if you can make the play you make the play." Pepperdine plays at Fresno State on Tuesday and returns to Malibu next weekend to host a two-day tournament.